What’s the matter with Iowa today?

The political battle over Latino immigration into the United States continues unabated. It challenged former President Trump, and it now challenges President Biden. Neither has achieved a satisfactory solution. The issues by now elicit a familiar response in our minds and psyches.

Last week, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds joined the discussion, with a remark that somehow feels different.

Gov. Reynolds said that Iowa would not accept 300 migrant children who had crossed the southern U.S. border without a parent. 

The governor said it’s not her problem — it’s President Biden’s problem. 

True enough, strictly speaking.  

But that problem pales compared to what migrant youngsters are trying to deal with. Theirs is the real problem.

The last count I heard was 17,000. That’s the number of children now in U.S. custody in camps and other facilities, most of them close to Mexico across Texas and other border states. U.S. red tape can’t keep up with the influx, and the number grows steadily.

U.S. immigration officials, such as those that serve in the American Midwest, asked governors if they could take a few hundred children on a temporary basis until they could be united with relatives in America. 

That’s what Gov. Reynolds said “no” to.

Iowa’s history is dotted with instances unlike that.

Prior to the Civil War, Iowans constituted a major stretch of the Underground Railroad, providing secret way stations for slaves who were fleeing captivity in the South and seeking freedom in northern states and Canada.

Remember the Orphan Trains? Parentless children from eastern cities were transported to Midwestern states, including Iowa, where local couples and families took them into their homes. They became part of those families. Some found their new homes in the Greene County area.

In World War II, a few Iowa towns became the sites of prisoner of war camps for captured German soldiers. Residents of the towns and nearby farms became acquainted with the POWs, and after the war some of the prisoners returned to Iowa to thank those who had given them work and had invited them into their kitchens for meals.

Most Iowans today swell with pride to recall when Gov. Bob Ray spearheaded the resettlement of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees into Iowa after the Vietnam War. Iowa became their new home state, and they continue to contribute to our state’s economy and culture in many ways. Greene County church congregations helped several refugee families settle here.

In 1999, Jefferson residents, with churches once again in the forefront, welcomed 21 members of an extended family, the Gashis, who had escaped brutal warfare in Kosovo. They abandoned nearly all their possessions when they fled. We provided six months of housing, clothing, education and translation services for them.

They gradually returned to Kosovo as the war tapered down. One of the young men left us with a comment: “Few people will know what you did for us, but God knows.”

Kathy and I have listened to friends and acquaintances here and across the state. It’s evident to us that Iowans remain a caring people — we have no doubt that Iowans are willing to host many more than 300 of the migrant children now separated from their families.

A TV news story last week left us speechless. A border patrol camera recorded a sobbing and shaking 10-year-old Nicaraguan boy who had been left alone to wander in the South Texas desert. He and his mother had crossed the border into Texas, but under U.S. policy they were forced to return to northern Mexico.

There they soon were kidnapped for ransom by a drug cartel. The price of their release was $10,000.

Relatives in Florida were able to raise half that amount, but that didn’t satisfy the kidnappers, who “freed” only the 10-year-old to join a group of migrants who had paid the cartel to help them gain illegal entry into the U.S. 

The group abandoned the boy once they had crossed into Texas, and left him wandering in the desert. His mother remains held by the kidnappers. 

As the boy approached the border patrol, he tearfully asked, “Please, will you help me?”

I guess that’s the universal hope of the 17,000 other children now in U.S. custody. 

I realize it would take some effort and some resources by the state of Iowa to accommodate 300 of them. But I know there are Iowa volunteer groups and individuals who would step up if asked. 

We’ve done it before, and we would do it now.

I’m perplexed that Gov. Reynolds wouldn’t ask Iowans to help, especially when back in 2019, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, she answered “yes” when President Trump asked if Iowa would help host refugees.

To channel Oz’s Dorothy: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Iowa anymore.”

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