With immigration raids on the rise, Iowans prepare for the day 'ICE comes to town'

MOUNT PLEASANT, Ia. — Immigration attorneys and social services organizations were on the ground within hours after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided the Midwest Precast Concrete plant here on May 9 and arrested 32 workers. 

Huddled in the back of the First Presbyterian Church, they worked to identify who was detained and locate families.

What started as a chaotic scene soon found structure. Neighbors helped translate legal forms. Immigration advocates planned recovery steps. Clergy stoked embers of hope. 

Workplace immigration raids have increased dramatically nationwide in 2018. Advocates in Iowa are starting to prepare for them the same way emergency responders ready for natural disasters.

For many, Mount Pleasant was a learning opportunity. 

Jose Zacarias, a community leader in West Liberty, was in Mount Pleasant the day after the raid taking mental notes. He said he wants be ready should "ICE come to town."  

"We feel like this is going to hit West Liberty sooner or later," Zacarias said after unloading a van full of donated supplies at the Mount Pleasant church. 

Latinos make up about 50 percent of West Liberty's 3,737 residents, according to U.S. census data. Since the Mount Pleasant raid, Zacarias said immigrants in his town are keeping a low profile. 

► RELATED:Iowa ICE raid: Children rejoice as father returns home

Zacarias wants to set up a network of advocates and attorneys like the one that's grown up around the Mount Pleasant raid.

"As a whole, I think we are doing what Anglos want us to do, which is assimilate," said Zacarias, a former West Liberty school board member. The city's high school was recently named the top public school in Iowa by U.S. News & World Report.

"We are making a lot of progress ... that will be disrupted if this presence of (ICE) comes to town," he said. 

Postville 'sent chills through the industry'

Since the election of President Donald Trump, immigration agents are arresting more undocumented immigrants, including those without criminal records, according to a USA Today analysis of federal data released this month. 

Over the first full 14 months of the Trump administration, 69 percent of undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE agents had a criminal record. Over the final two years of the Obama administration, that number was 86 percent. 

ICE agents have arrested an average of 4,143 undocumented immigrants without a criminal record each month under the Trump administration. In the final two years under Obama, the agents averaged 1,703 a month.

The number of employers being investigated is up, too. 

► RELATED:In addition to Mount Pleasant arrests, ICE detains 25 throughout Iowa in Midwest sweep

Homeland Security conducted 2,234 employer audits through the first seven months of the 2018 fiscal year and arrested 1,143 workers in the process. 

That's more than double the 1,360 employer audits conducted in all of 2017 from which 311 workers were arrested. 

Zacarias fears ICE could target one of West Liberty's largest employers, a meat-processing plant that employs about 850 people. Many of those workers are immigrants, Zacarias said. He worked there when he first arrived in West Liberty 34 years ago.

Dan Waters, an attorney for West Liberty Foods, said that won't happen. The company is part of a voluntary program that lets ICE audit its business records annually. Sixty workers were terminated after the first audit, he said. 

West Liberty Foods joined the program in 2011, prompted by an immigration raid three years earlier at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville in which nearly 400 undocumented workers were detained. Nearly 300 were given five-month prison sentences before being deported. 

The fallout from the Postville raid cratered the local economy, tore families apart and sent the town into a tailspin from which it's still recovering.

"That sent chills through the industry," Waters said. "We wanted to demonstrate to the government that we had best practices in place."

'You prepare for a war'

Mount Pleasant and West Liberty aren't alone. 

Family and immigration advocates, churches and schools in Ottumwa, about 50 miles west of Mount Pleasant along U.S. Highway 34, are working on an "emergency plan" in case ICE agents come to the town, said Evelyn Rivera, the Crisis Center & Women's Shelter coordinator in Ottumwa.  

The center began training sessions to teach immigrants about their rights last year. 

Once news of the Mount Pleasant raid hit town, "it kind of became real," she said. 

"It’s like OK, now this is getting closer. We need to become more active again," Rivera said. 

Latinos make up about 14 percent of Ottumwa's 24,490 residents, according to U.S. census data. There also are growing populations of refugees and immigrants from Thailand and Africa, Rivera said. 

Rivera is working with American Friends Service Committee — one of the first groups that responded to the Mount Pleasant raid — to set up a network of volunteers, pro-bono attorneys and churches to serve as safe meeting points should a raid happen in her town.

"You prepare for a war ... even if the war never happens, still you have the skills and preparation to confront a situation like this," she said. 

'It breaks down the fabric of a community' 

Immigration raids have a similar effect on a community as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or political violence, said Nicole Novak, an epidemiologist from the University of Iowa.

Novak studied birth certificate data after the Postville raid and discovered that Latino infants delivered after the event statewide were 24 percent more likely to be born at a low birth weight, about 5.5 pounds. White mothers' infants weren't affected. 

An immigration raid is a "double whammy," she said. People suffering from both fear and stress during the aftermath then retreat into seclusion instead of spending time with others who can help them cope. 

"It breaks down the fabric of a community," Novak said. 

The immediate traumatic impact is especially intense for children, who are really developmentally vulnerable, she said. 

Diana Lopez, a 16-year-old sophomore at Mount Pleasant High School, avoided school in the days after the raid.

Her father, who works at the concrete plant, was not arrested. He was home on break when ICE agents rounded up his coworkers. 

When she returned to school, Lopez was surprised the raid was not being discussed by teachers. 

Mount Pleasant Superintendent John Hendrickson told the Register in the aftermath of the raid that school would continue "as normal as possible."

"We’re not talking about the raid," Hendrickson said. "Normalcy is best." 

Lopez said she took the silence as a lack of caring about the situation many of her classmates were facing. 

"It surprised me," she said. "They'll talk about the dress code and smaller things. But this is a thing that has hit the community in general. Instead of talking about it they sort of shut down."

'Slap on the wrist' is incentive

Standing outside his home in downtown Mount Pleasant seven days after the raid, 67-year-old Steve Kristy said he understands wanting to help the children of arrested workers.

"They're kind of stuck," he said. 

But "if all you do is slap them on the wrist and say you'll take care of their family," there's an incentive for more immigrants to come, Kristy said. 

"They want to get all these people, give them amnesty and let them vote," Kristy said. "Sorry, I don’t think that’s right."

Sixty-one percent of Henry County voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016. The president made getting tough on immigration a central theme of his campaign. 

Trent Hobbs, the central committee chairman for Henry County Republicans, said his group "stand(s) with the president on his immigration views," but it would "not voice an opinion" on the raid. 

Henry County Democrats called it a "cruel and unnecessary sundering of families in our community" — and across the nation — in a May 21 news release. 

"We can maintain national security while preserving the dignity of all people, regardless of their current status. We can enjoy secure borders without tearing families apart," Jeff Fager, the group's chairman, wrote.

'They are afraid of our power'

The number of immigrants living in the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras rose by 25 percent from 2007 to 2015, according to the Pew Research Center. Of the 3 million immigrants living in the U.S. from these countries, 55 percent were unauthorized as of 2015.

Of the men detained in Mount Pleasant, 22 were from Guatemala, seven were from Mexico, two were from El Salvador and one was from Honduras.

Economic opportunity is the main driver, Pew noted, but these countries are also experiencing record homicide rates and extreme poverty. 

Illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border hit historic lows in Trump's first year as president. But data released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed a 227 percent increase in border apprehensions last month compared to April 2017. 

Rafael Morataya, executive director of the Center for Worker Justice in eastern Iowa, said no matter what U.S. policymakers try to do, immigrants will still cross the border to flee the crises in their own countries.

"Politicians create this fear around us because they are afraid of our power," Morataya said. "We’re shaping the economy of this country and eventually the politics. You will see."

He points to the generation of young immigrants who will be eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election.

The average Latino living in Iowa is 23 years old, according to the Statewide Data Center, while the average age overall is 38. In 2016, Pew Research Center estimated there were 67,000 eligible Latino voters or almost 3 percent of the total eligible voting population in the state. 

Tar Macias, owner of the Spanish-language newspaper Hola Iowa, said voting Latinos could make an impact, especially in a close race. He'll be driving a League of United Latin American Citizens voter registration van to many Iowa cities, including Mount Pleasant, before the June 5 primary.

"The young people feel they’re not being heard. Hopefully, they’ll be motivated enough to get out and vote," he said.