News (Noticias) for Iowa

Iowa’s Hispanic population continues to steadily grow, with the state gaining more than 36,000 Hispanic residents since 2000, according to new census estimates to be released today.

Nearly 120,000 people who report they are Hispanic lived in Iowa as of July 1, 2007, a 44 percent increase since the 2000 census.”*

Allegations that federal officials illegally rounded up and arrested almost 1,300 Swift factory workers during raids in Marshalltown and across the country are being highlighted today at a public hearing that includes testimony from former Gov. Tom Vilsack.

“Our nation has no real comprehensive immigration policy, so instead we use scare tactics to mark the failure of our system,” Vilsack said to about 100 people this morning at Plymouth Church in Des Moines.

Vilsack alleged that federal immigration officials used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long bouts of secrecy in the Dec. 12, 2006, raids at Swift & Co. in Marshalltown, where 90 people were arrested for immigration violations.”*

A national commission investigating immigration raids at Swift meatpacking plants held a hearing in Des Moines Tuesday. Former Governor Tom Vilsack questioned plant workers and their families along with immigrant advocates. Hundreds of workers were detained at Swift plants in Marshalltown, Iowa and elsewhere in December of 2006 following an investigation into the use of stolen identities by illegal immigrants.

Vilsack, who is on the commission, claims the raids violated constitutional protections against search and seizure. Vilsack said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents, who were heavily armed, entered the Swift Plant and demanded all employees be placed in a holding area.”*

When Monica del Carmen Gonzalez Lopez drove an SUV into the side of a minivan in October, killing a 90-year-old grandmother and injuring three relatives, investigators found that the 23-year-old had already had several brushes with the law.

Some were minor infractions. Others — including assault, child endangerment and exposing a child to methamphetamine — were far more serious.

She was also in the country illegally.”*

In an effort to keep up with changing demographics, the Iowa Judicial Branch is in the process of equipping all of the state’s courthouse staff with basic Spanish skills.

Johnson County Clerk of Court Lodema Berkley estimated that the number of Spanish-speakers who come to the courthouse (whose first language isn’t English) has risen by 90 percent in the past 10 years.

In addition, Chief Justice Marsha Ternus of the Iowa Supreme Court said in her most recent State of the Judiciary Address that “Iowa’s courts are significantly affected by the increasing diversity of Iowa’s population.”"*

Illegal immigrants behind bars wouldn’t be able to post bail under a bill set to hit the floor for debate this week in the Iowa House.

The bill, HF 2686, has evolved from a workplace identity-theft measure to a more expansive one that includes the contentious bail-denying provision.”*

*From: http://media.www.dailyiowan.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Rep. Steve King, a Republican who represents western Iowa, has long been a controversial figure in political circles. While earning the praise of some for his lack of so-called “political correctness,” others have chastised his actions, labeling them as nativistic and xenophobic.

Last week’s ruling on a 2006 lawsuit brought by King continued that swirling controversy, when 5th District Judge Douglas Staskal decided printing Iowa voting forms in languages other than English violated a 2002 state law.”*

*From: http://media.www.dailyiowan.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

The basic issue is simple. Most court cases are not high-profile events where the defendant hires an attorney and the two sides debate in front of a jury. There are literally hundreds of minor events, traffic tickets or misdemeanor cases, for every major trial.

The need for understanding between the court and a defendant becomes obvious in those minor cases. People often represent themselves, and they must be able to understand the court’s instructions.

That basic issue led to an offer to court employees for state-supplied lessons in Spanish. Gamon jumped at the opportunity.”*

*From: http://www.ottumwacourier.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

A House measure that would punish employers who don’t verify job applicants’ identity has survived funnel week, but it’s getting backlash from critics who call it an anti-immigration bill.

The bill would require employers to verify that a job applicant’s appearance matches a valid photo ID and sign a form that they had done so. Employers caught lying on the form would be subject to felony perjury charges, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine.”*

*From: http://www.chron.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Rosca de Reyes, Conchas and Campechana may be new baked goods to some, but they are very familiar to local baker Lupe Rivera. With 63 years experience, Rivera has made bread and other baked goods in both Mexico and the United States.

“Good bread takes time and patience” Rivera said while working at the Muscatine Hy-vee bakery on Monday afternoon.

For the past two months Rivera has been providing Hy-Vee customers with fresh, authentic Mexican bread that he and his customers agree has a flavor all its own.”*

*From: http://www.muscatinejournal.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Since 1999 the Latino population in a nine-county area of North Iowa has grown from 3,083 to 4,794 in 2006, according to the State Library of Iowa, State Data Center Program.

In Franklin County the Latino population has more than than quadrupled from 256 in 1999 to 1,146 in 2006, making up 10.7 percent of the population. Wright County’s Latino population has increased six-fold in a decade, from 166 in 1999 to 1,025 in 2006. A total of 7.6 percent of the county’s population is Latino.”*

*From: http://www.globegazette.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Walter and Elsi Carranza have never voted in a caucus before. In the basement of the unheated Mount Olive Baptist Church, they hunch down in winter coats and listen quietly for 45 minutes as Obama volunteer Carlos Odio translates caucus-trainer Rick Mullin’s lesson on how to caucus: arrive on time, go to your candidate’s corner, switch candidates if yours is unviable. Occasionally, Walter tosses a question at Rick. What
happens if my name isn’t on the precinct list? What happens after the initial caucus tallies are taken? What if I don’t speak English? Can I still caucus?”*

*From: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Hispanic media are cautious about placing too much significance on Iowa’s caucus results: Although it is the first state to hold a presidential caucus, Iowa is not representative of the demographics of the country, and does not include the fastest-growing voting bloc of the country: immigrant and Latino voters.

“It is remarkable that Iowa should play such a critical role, given that it isn’t a state that is representative of the demographics nor economy of the United States,” write editors from La Opinión in Los Angeles. Iowa’s population is mostly white; its economy is tied to agriculture and cattle breeding.”*

*From: http://news.ncmonline.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Democrat Bill Richardson said Tuesday that despite low poll numbers, he remained confident of a strong finish in the Iowa caucuses. He maintained that he was his party’s best choice to recapture the White House.The New Mexico governor spent New Year’s Day campaigning in six cities in southeast Iowa, seeking support from undecided Iowans. Although Richardson was in fourth place with 6 percent support among Democrats in an Iowa Poll released Monday night, he said he had commitments from 18,000 Iowans and hoped for a third-place caucus finish on Thursday.”*

*From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Gov. Bill Richardson’s campaign is expected to direct their supporters to caucus for Sen. Barack Obama in the second round of voting at Thursday’s caucuses in precincts where he is not viable. Two sources familiar with the plan told Iowa Independent that the New Mexico Governor’s organizers have been instructed to direct supporters to Obama in the places where they fail to reach the 15% threshold for viability.”*

*From: http://www.iowaindependent.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

What’s the matter with Iowa? Maybe I’m experiencing a little geographic jealously. When I moved back to California, I assumed San Diego — as a border town — would be ground zero in the immigration debate. So when did Sioux City, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids cut in line? If Iowa is, in fact, the new center of the immigration debate, what sense does that make?

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that despite the lip service given to border security and fighting terrorism, much of the debate is driven by demographics and the concern that the United States is becoming too Latino. In some parts of the country, such anxiety might make sense. But who would have imagined you’d find traces of it in a region that is still overwhelmingly Anglo? According to the 2000 Census, Iowa is about 94 percent white, 3 percent Latino, 2 percent black and 1 percent Asian.”*

*From: http://www.modbee.com/opinion/national/story/167932.htmlDELETEME!
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will resume campaigning for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa today as the state holds its caucuses, which mark the start of the process to select the major party presidential nominees.

Villaraigosa is scheduled to greet diners at three Des Moines restaurants, call caucus goers, speak to precinct captains, greet caucus goers and attend Clinton’s caucus night celebration, a campaign official said.”*

*From: http://www.dailynews.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

When Viivi Shirley moved to this small railroad town in 1963, the faces of almost all of its residents were, as she put it, “lily-white.”

That changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the meat processing plant on the town’s west side underwent a series of ownership changes. The new owners slashed wages and hired a labor force recruited from Texas and California.

The new workers quickly flooded Perry, looking and sounding nothing like the European immigrants who originally settled this town about 40 miles northwest of Des Moines. Their skin was brown, Spanish rolled off their tongues and they hailed originally from Mexico and Central America.”*

*From: http://www.chicagotribune.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Two decades after he left his native Mexico and eight years after he moved to Iowa, Jose Castillo is tired of being a scapegoat.

“We are not terrorists,” he said. “We are not murderers. We are not bad people. A lot of innocent people are being blamed for things just because they’re Mexican.”

Castillo, a parish worker at St. Mary’s Catholic Church who says he came to America legally, personifies a demographic earthquake that is reshaping Iowa’s culture and politics and shaking up the presidential campaign.”*

The church basement was filled with families celebrating the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but everyone around the table was talking about the U.S. election.

“I saw Joe Biden last night,” said Irlanda Helgen, 59.

“What did he say?” the others wanted to know. No one needed to say they were talking about what the visiting Democratic candidate said about immigration.”*

As Gov. Bill Richardson’s director of Cabinet affairs, Daniela Glick is used to having her phone practically glued to her ear.

She’s used to the rush of the office, the long hours, the madness that comes with working for the state’s biggest boss.

But in her new, temporary (and volunteer) job for Richardson — in a snow-whipped office in Iowa City, Iowa — Glick is doing more talking than she ever imagined.”*

The nation’s struggle over immigration may seem distant in states like Iowa, hundreds of miles from any border, but the debate is part of daily life here, more than ever now as residents prepare to pick a president. Nearly all of more than two dozen people interviewed here last week said they considered immigration policy at or near the top of their lists of concerns as they look to the presidential caucuses next month.

And yet, nearly everyone interviewed said that none of the political candidates had arrived at a position on immigration that fully satisfied them. In real life, they said, the issues surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, were far more complicated than bumper sticker slogans or jabs on a debate stage or even the carefully picked language of campaign policy papers.

The subject went largely unaddressed in Wednesday’s Republican debate in Des Moines after the moderator discouraged discussion of immigration, suggesting that Iowans already were familiar with the candidates’ positions.”*

The classrooms at Sunnyside Elementary School had pupils long before school started. All were ready to learn a foreign language on their own time.

The instruction has been a collaboration between students in the Spanish classes at Western Iowa Tech Community College and the Morningside grade school for at least eight years, explained Sunnyside principal Karen Hess.

“It started before I came on board, but I thought it was a great idea,” said Hess, who has been the Sunnyside principal for five years. “At this age the kids can pick up a language and learn it far quicker than if their introduction to it is in middle or even high school.”"*

The latest television ad from U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s presidential campaign draws a link between illegal immigration and Central and South American gang violence that has come to the United States.

The new ad, entitled “Consequences,” was unveiled at a press conference this afternoon in downtown Des Moines.”*

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa slipped quietly out of the city last week to campaign in Iowa for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a rare public foray into presidential politics since his marital meltdown dominated front pages last summer.

Clinton made a splash in May when she snagged the Democratic mayor’s endorsement, and even former President Bill Clinton was called in to help lock up Villaraigosa’s support. The New York senator said at the time that Villaraigosa, one of the nation’s most prominent Hispanic politicians, would be “reaching out to a broad range of voters across the country.”"*