What Greene County can learn from Storm Lake on immigration

By DOUGLAS BURNS
d.burns@carrollspaper.com

Greene County can learn from one of Iowa’s more immigrant-rich cities, Storm Lake, and manage a designed flow of newcomers to cities in the county, and to hundreds of open jobs in Jefferson and surrounding towns, said Carlos Arguello, founder of Latino IQ, an organization working to boost the population and workforce of Greene County.

Arguello and economic-development leaders in the county organized a rountable with citizens, and current and former leaders from Storm Lake, last week at Wild Rose Casino & Resort in Jefferson. More than 100 people, most from Greene County, attended the event.

“Just as the United States was built on the backs immigrants it will be sustained by immigrants,” said former Storm Lake Police Chief Mark Prosser, now chief of staff to Bishop R. Walker Nickless of the Sioux City Catholic Diocese.
Some of the more impactful comments came from students at Storm Lake High School, where 30 languages are spoken.

“The diversity at my school is lovely … At the end of the day for me everyone is the same person and we should just be treated the same because we are all human, said Storm Lake sophomore Emma Dierking, 15.

Chuck Offenburger, one of the leaders of Nueva en Vida, the countywide effort to attract residents and employees from the Latino community, lived in Storm Lake, and taught at Buena Vista University there, before he moved to Greene County.

“It’s like you are getting a global education and you don’t even have to leave town,” Offenburger said of Storm Lake’s diversity.

Addressing one issue that has come up at forums on the immigration-boosting plans for the county, Prosser said that since 1992 crime rates have remained at least proportional to populations of races in Storm Lake, while adding that the numbers nationally favor immigrants where crime is concerned.

“Immigrants commit crimes at a lower percentage than native”-born Americans, Prosser said.

Undocumented immigrants commit crimes at even lower rates, he added.
Not everyone in the audience thought recruiting more Latinos to Greene County was a good idea.

“I happen to be a Republican, and I don’t see many of us here,” said Kirk Citrus, 62, of Scranton. “To me, this is quite political. It also looks quite racist. There are, what, 13 different races on the globe and we are concentrating on one race right here.”

Citrus, a member of the Greene County Republican Party Central Committee, said thousands of Latinos are “invading” the United States.

“You know what, we’ve been lied to,” he said.

Later, in an interview with The Jefferson Herald, Citrus said most people in Greene County don’t want to see the Latino-recruitment program succeed.

“We have a low crime here,” Citrus said. “You know what, you move enough of these people here and we will have to lock our stuff up.”
He added, “Greene County is run by Democrats.”

Arguello said in an interview that he wanted to hear points of view from all residents of Greene County, even those that some people may find objectionable.

“The reality from my perspective is that somebody who has those types of views, there are going to be many people like that, whether they are here in the audience or whether they are at home,” Arguello said. “We have to be able to educate both sides. If we didn’t have folks speak up where they are showing reservations I would have more concerns because I would think that they are not being totally open and honest about expressing those concerns because maybe they want to be too political correct.”

In terms of the merits of the allegations from Citrus, Arguello pointed to the research from Prosser, a nationally recognized expert on immigration and law enforcement. Prosser serves on the board of directors of the National Immigration Forum.

“Let’s talk about that in a way that is factual and has numbers that can back up the narrative,” Arguello said.