Immigration Foes Find Platform in Iowa

The coalition of groups advocating tighter immigration restrictions has mounted a national billboard and radio advertising campaign warning that "immigration is doubling the U.S. population in your child's lifetime," and has launched other awareness efforts.

Craig Nelson, director of New York-based ProjectUSA said, "We want to see it [immigration] play out in every race next year, and then I'm hoping that the Bush administration will listen to what people in places like Iowa are saying."

Nelson said Harkin would probably be targeted because of "ties to the cheap labor lobby" and his vote last year for an amnesty for illegal immigrants and a 1996 vote that effectively expanded immigration.

Dan Stein, executive director of FAIR, said there is a "big divide growing in Iowa on this issue of how the public feels about the integrity of their communities." He said Vilsack was, in effect, promoting Iowa's immigration policy over federal quotas on foreign workers without consulting the people who would be affected.

"Every time there are wage pressures, the elitists and the corporate interests that are looking for cheap labor have this high-handed, contemptuous attitude toward public opinion on immigration, but this time the public is saying, basically, 'Stick it,' " Stein said. "The attitude is that Americans aren't even supposed to raise the question about massive immigration."

State Rep. Steve Sukup, a leading candidate in the GOP gubernatorial primary next year, said that he does not intend to make immigration an issue but that Vilsack's missteps on immigration policy will be obvious to voters. He said it won't be any outside group that brings Vilsack down; instead it will be "this top-down, government-knows-best idea that created this problem for him in the first place."

Sukup said that while he believes Iowa should welcome immigration, "there are other strategies we need to look at first," including reversing an outflow of retirees who are seeking to avoid state taxes on Social Security and pension benefits and being more aggressive about bringing in economic development funds.

"When you go out and do [immigrant] recruiting, I think you better make sure you are doing it naturally," Sukup said. He said Vilsack's backpedaling from the pilot recruitment programs that were launched with fanfare last year is an indication that the strategy was flawed.

For his part, Vilsack said immigration "won't be a very effective campaign issue because both parties have expressed a need for greater development of the workforce."

State Democratic Chairman Sheila McGuire Riggs said she saw irony in outside groups trying to use workforce recruitment as a wedge against Iowa's first Democratic governor in 30 years, because the Strategic Planning Group Council that devised the "population recovery plan" was headed by a Republican and was loosely based on a 1970s Republican program that recruited Asian immigrants.

"I don't see this as a Democratic or a Republican issue. It's a fear-mongering issue and I think reasonable people will see that and reject these groups," Riggs said.

In the Senate race, the leading contender in the GOP primary to challenge Harkin is Rep. Greg Ganske. An aide in Ganske's Washington office said he doubted the campaign would focus on immigration but would focus on such issues as federal agricultural policy and Ganske's role in enacting a patients' bill of rights. The aide said Ganske was "generally supportive" of legal immigration to boost Iowa's declining workforce.

Meanwhile, as both national political parties step up their outreach to Latino voters and Hispanics are increasingly being elected or appointed to top government posts in many states, the anti-immigration campaigning here is disturbing to those who have tried to work for greater acceptance of immigrants.

"It is heartbreaking," said Michelle Soria, executive director of the Iowa Council for International Understanding, which works on behalf of immigrants. "Every time we see these attacks we see the faces of the people they are hurting, and we feel terrible because we know their personal stories and the hardships they endured to get here."

Soria said such campaigns are "all intended to invoke fear, which is a technique that ProjectUSA has used before." She said the group came to Iowa last year to campaign for enactment of an English-only law, an effort that failed in the state legislature.

"I don't think these people come from very diverse communities and so, emotionally, they can't feel how hurtful it is when they do this," Soria said. "I don't even like to talk with [immigrants] about it, because it is so hard for them to understand."