By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer
November 15, 2007 11:35 pm
—
OTTUMWA — It wasn’t a surprise when presidential candidate Fred Thompson took a swipe at fellow candidate Mitt Romney recently over immigration. Candidates for president want to show voters how they differ from rivals, and immigration is shaping up to be one of the biggest issues of the campaign.
Immigration is back as a political fight, and it’s spilling over into communities around the country. Groups rarely agree on just how big an issue it is. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 estimate indicated there are 37.5 million foreign-born residents in the country. About a third of them have arrived since 2000. The vast majority, 20 million, are from Latin America.
There’s a catch, though. The bureau doesn’t ask whether people came to the country legally. Even those who favor wholesale deportation of illegal immigrants don’t generally support closing the borders entirely. So the fight over immigration often morphs into a debate over illegal immigration and what to do with illegal immigrants who are already here.
How many immigrants are here illegally depends on who you ask. The Center for Immigration Studies puts the figure at 8-10 million. Tom Tancredo, whose presidential campaign relies heavily on illegal immigration as a rallying point, says there are at least 12 million illegal immigrants. Other estimates go as high as 38 million.
There are no good estimates for Ottumwa. Most estimates put Wapello County’s immigrant population at 3,000-4,000. But that does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.
The debate in Ottumwa tends to simmer rather than explode. There are flashpoints, but it lies beneath the surface for the most part. The biggest eruption so far was the January 2007 debate over whether to apply for the ICE 287(g) program.
Law enforcement works in a stratified atmosphere. Agencies have specific areas of responsibility. And it’s not always possible for law enforcement authorized in one jurisdiction to function in the same capacity elsewhere. City police officers can’t generally enforce federal law.
ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, developed the program to bring local law enforcement into immigration enforcement. The program trains local officers on how to begin deportation proceedings when an illegal immigrant is arrested. They remain officers at their local departments, but can function in a limited capacity as federal agents.
Ottumwa Police Chief Jim Clark, then the interim chief, brought the program to the city council’s attention. He said the program can target violent offenders in Ottumwa and remove them from the community.
Not everyone bought it. Latinos Unidos claimed the program would promote fear of law enforcement within the Hispanic community. Norma Rosales predicted Ottumwa would “become a ghost town,” if the city joined the program.
Clark says he tried to work with the Latino community to emphasize that the program was not designed to target a large group. The Ottumwa plan was to go after people who commit violent crimes, usually felonies. The accretion of an extensive police record alone would not trigger deportation proceedings, provided the record was comprised of misdemeanors.
It does not appear that the message got across. Himar Hernandez, formerly the director of the New Iowans Center in Ottumwa, said Clark failed to include the Latino community in the preliminary discussions about the program.
“The problem here was not the program, it was how it was communicated to the Latino community,” he said. “We knew there was no money from the start.”
Ottumwa eventually applied, but it does not look like the program will go into effect here. Clark announced late this summer that ICE officials told him Congress allocated enough money for only three new cities and that they wanted to focus on large cities and border areas.
Beyond specific flashpoints, much of the debate over immigration focuses on two basic issues: culture and social services. Clark says immigration is playing a role in stretching Ottumwa’s social services, particularly for law enforcement. It’s not that immigrants are more prone to breaking the law, he said, it’s that population growth brings more opportunities for any conflict.
“Any growth in population is going to increase the need for police services,” he said. “More people means more calls for service.”
The trend for police calls is going up, as it has for the past two decades. The department hit a new record in 2006. Officers totaled 54,000 calls for service. Not all of those calls are for crimes, but even a call for an officer to check on someone’s well-being takes time.
The department will probably see a new record this year. Clark said projections show a total of 58,000 calls for service in 2007, an increase of 7.4 percent.
Cultural challenges can take even more time for otherwise routine contacts. Language is the biggest issue, but officers are trained to gather information from nonverbal cues like a person’s demeanor and behavior. Looking away from someone while in a conversation is usually a sign of unease in American culture. It suggests the person is hiding something.
That’s not the case in other cultures. Clark said people in many Latin American nations have a very different, even adversarial relationship with police. Averting the eyes is a way of preventing conflict. But it’s easy for an American officer to misread the sign.
Cultural challenges extend well beyond law enforcement. Hernandez said most Hispanic immigrants who come to Ottumwa are not from urban areas.
“The folks that we get in Iowa, they don’t come from big towns,” he said. “They’re from very, very rural areas.”
That rural tradition extended to people’s arrival in the United States. Hernandez estimates more than 90 percent of Ottumwa’s immigrant population made other stops in the country before coming to Ottumwa. They followed seasonal work on farms and other agricultural sectors, a pattern that has been well-established for generations of migrant workers.
The difference in Ottumwa is that the work isn’t seasonal. There is no question that the first major draw for Hispanic immigrants was the Excel hog processing plant, now Cargill Meat Solutions. It’s different from traditional farm work done by immigrant laborers in that it runs year-round.
Plant Manager Randy Zorn said immigration questions cause everyone headaches.
“I think it causes speculation, causes concerns, causes worry. Why wouldn’t it?” he said.
The federal government’s inaction this summer compounds those worries. President Bush pushed hard for a new immigration bill, but it fell apart in Congress. Bush and his supporters came in for criticism from both sides. Immigration hawks found fault with the plans to provide a means by which illegal immigrants could gain legal status. Others said the plan was too restrictive and prevented too many people from entering the country.
With no federal legislation in place, states are left to their own devices. The Associated Press reported that states adopted a total of 171 immigration bills in 41 different states in just the first six months of 2007. Only 84 such bills took effect in all of 2006.
That same report detailed just what a mess the laws can be in the absence of a national standard. Arizona’s law requires businesses to use a federal database to weed out illegal immigrants from the workforce. The law in Illinois bans use of that same database because of errors.
Non-governmental organizations are getting into the fray as well. Churches in San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles banded together to provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants who faced deportation.
There is little sign that the federal government is likely to get any kind of comprehensive legislation through in the near future. Efforts this past summer failed. And almost everyone involved in politics believes 2008 is a near impossible target. There’s a presidential election, one-third of the Senate is up for re-election and every member of the House faces voters.
It’s not an atmosphere conducive to controversial legislation. And according to U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, there’s no planning for 2009. He says Congress recognizes the need for the legislation, but he is not aware of any legislators laying the groundwork for the kind of cooperation that will likely be needed.
“I’m not sure that anyone is looking at this for 2009,” he said.
Despite Congress’ absence, the federal government appears to be stepping up enforcement of existing laws. ICE deported 195,000 illegal immigrants in fiscal 2006. The bureau touts the figure as a 13 percent increase over 2005. Enforcement efforts also targeted gang activity among groups that have large followings in multiple countries.
Operation Community Shield began in 2005. It initially focused on Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang known for its violent behavior. It has since expanded to include more than 700 street gangs. The list includes Sureno 13 and the Latin Kings, groups referenced in graffiti in Ottumwa.
Lt. Tom McAndrew has kept a cautious eye on the graffiti. Gang activity is closely linked to drug trafficking. McAndrew’s work with the Southeast Iowa Inter-Agency Drug Task Force means he knows the connection is there.
The line between wannabe gang members and bona-fide members is hard to establish. A kid who spray paints a tag on a wall may just be looking for something to brag about. One who puts his tag above that of a rival may be looking for a fight.
McAndrew said police know there are people in Ottumwa who are retired for all intents and purposes. They may keep contacts with the gangs they were once in, but they aren’t looking for trouble. What concerns police is that such a situation is unstable. If active gang members decide an area is an easy target and move in, things can get ugly.
There are signs things may slide in that direction. Edwin Ramos faces charges of attempted murder in connection to a June shooting in Ottumwa. Ramos was below the Ottumwa police department’s radar. But both McAndrew and Clark say he was well-known to Chicago police because of his gang ties.
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.