Immigration Foes Find Platform in Iowa

National Groups Fight Governor on Recruiting Workers From Abroad

DES MOINES -- A plan by Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) to ease the state's labor shortage by recruiting foreign workers is being seized upon by several national groups as a way to turn immigration into a pivotal issue in next year's statewide election.

A coalition of national organizations that back immigration restrictions is targeting three "model cities" designated by Vilsack last year in an experiment to recruit 310,000 foreign workers to settle in Iowa over the next decade. Anti-immigration forces are encouraged by a backlash in largely white areas where immigrant populations have mushroomed around new meatpacking plants.

Petitions have been circulated in Fort Dodge, Mason City and Marshalltown to pressure local officials to pull back from pilot programs that were intended to declare Iowa an "immigration enterprise zone" and even seek a state-specific exemption from federal immigration quotas.

At public meetings, some residents of the targeted cities have complained that the plan will take jobs from them, increase crime and other social problems, and reduce their standard of living. Some of their fears have been reinforced by such outside groups as ProjectUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which have provided money and advice to local campaigns against immigration.

Iowa is one of the least diverse states in the nation. It is 94 percent white. According to the 2000 Census, Latinos made up 2.8 percent of its population.

The protests have caused Vilsack to backpedal somewhat from his original goals and say that the three model cities are not required to actively recruit foreign workers but are merely intended to be "welcoming" to immigrants as part of a broader strategy that includes keeping young workers in the state and appealing for the return of those who have left.

For years Iowa has been losing young people, most of them rural. The exodus intensified in the mid-1980s, when more than 200,000 Iowans left during the national farm crisis.

In an interview, Vilsack bristled at the notion of anti-immigration groups in New York and Washington conspiring to influence an Iowa election and predicted that the groups' attempts to generate a racially tinged backlash would result in a backlash of their own.

"I don't think Iowans are going to take too kindly to being told by outsiders how they should think," Vilsack said. "Iowans are perfectly capable of making up their own minds, and I don't think they want to be told not to be hospitable. This is the Midwest, and being welcoming is a tradition here."

Vilsack denied that he has backpedaled on recruiting foreign workers and said that his workforce strategy all along has been merely to "recognize the inevitable, that people are going to come in from other countries and that it is in our best interest to be welcoming."

But Paul Westrum, ProjectUSA's Midwest representative, said, "The snowball has already started to roll, and unless he can do some fancy dancing, he doesn't stand much chance" of getting reelected next year.

Accusing Vilsack of trying to "turn Iowa into the Ellis Island of the Midwest," Westrum said the immigration issue was likely to spill over into the Iowa congressional races and the reelection bid of Sen. Tom Harkin (D).

He said it is also likely to converge with what he said are growing concerns here and nationally over the Bush administration's consideration of a proposal to grant legal residency to 3 million illegal immigrants from Mexico.

In the past year, groups such as ProjectUSA and FAIR have succeeded in raising their profiles in the midst of what they claim is a revival of the mid-1990s backlash against "out-of-control immigration" that accompanied debates in California over restricting social services for undocumented aliens.