Along the main thoroughfare of this small meatpacking town, the transformation of a single shop, once known as the Ken-A-Bob restaurant, tells the story of the town itself.
The Ken-A-Bob, an old-fashioned buffet with American classics of fried chicken and roast beef, went out of business and reopened as Sichanh market, catering to a wave of immigrants from Laos. Now the shelves are also packed with Mexican spices, tostadas, chicharrones, the walls covered in signs in Spanish for Mary Kay cosmetics, baby sitters and Senator Barack Obama.
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.
Those who said they favored granting a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in this country were leaning mainly toward Democratic presidential candidates, but most said they wished their candidate could better explain how to carry out such a path practically and fairly.
And those who said they favored tough and immediate penalties for illegal immigrants said they mostly favored Republicans (though not Senator John McCain, who seemed to draw special ire here for what people called his disappointingly lax position), but said they had doubts that so many people could really be found or punished.
“I care about the illegal immigration issue a lot,” said David F. Friedrich, a farmer who said he was a supporter of President Bush and had yet to decide who he would support. “But when you start looking for solutions, I just don’t know. I think it’s too far gone.”
Like a handful of communities in Iowa — places named Denison, Ottumwa, Postville and Marshalltown — Storm Lake, a city of about 10,000, offers a glimpse at how new immigration has transformed the nation’s rural middle and with it, the political landscape.
Two decades ago, less than 1 percent of the people in Buena Vista County, where Storm Lake is the county seat, were Hispanic. By last year, the county had the highest percentage of Hispanic people of any county in Iowa, with 19.2, compared with less than 4 percent statewide. Buena Vista County also ranks highest in Iowa in percentages of those learning English in school, of recent international immigrants and of residents born in other countries.
In the interviews here, peoples’ focus on immigration held regardless of what perspective they brought to the debate, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, Hispanic or not, recent arrivals or lifelong Iowans.
Some, like Bob DeMey, said they were troubled by all the change in Storm Lake, which was once almost exclusively white but which, Mr. DeMey said, has come to be known among his friends as Little Mexico. So much immigration — mainly illegal immigration, he says — has taken meatpacking jobs away from the locals, left the schools jammed, and driven up crime.
“They ought to be all shipped back to where they came from,” said Mr. DeMey, who is retired.
Others, like Cindy Molgaard, said they worried that raids on illegal immigrants would drive away a group that kept Storm Lake thriving and growing and selling goods even as other Midwestern towns shriveled and eventually disappeared.
“As a country, we have saved so many human beings, so why wouldn’t we save the people who are already right here with us, part of us?” Ms. Molgaard, who favors Mr. Obama, said of creating a path to grant citizenship for those who are already here. “I used to swear there was not a bigot anywhere in Storm Lake, but as soon as minorities started moving in, they came out of the woodwork.”
Steve Salts, who sells cars, said he considered himself a “damn good Democrat” and was leaning toward Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, but was upset by notions the Democrats had offered in support of an immigration package, which failed this year in Washington and would have given some illegal immigrants a chance, ultimately, to stay.
“What’s right is right, and I just don’t like the illegal alien part of it with the Democrats,” said Mr. Salts, who added that he had been impressed by elements of what Fred D. Thompson, a Republican and former Tennessee senator, had suggested, including tough border enforcement and making English the official language.
“Then again, maybe we can’t remove all these people,” Mr. Salts said. “Maybe we’ve got to just live with it. I mean, look around.”
With processing plants for hogs and for turkeys, Storm Lake sits in Iowa’s northwestern region, an agricultural area with strong Republican leanings and one some say feels more than geographically remote from Des Moines, the state’s urban center.
In 1970, people of mostly German and Scandinavian ancestry dominated this town. Soon, refugees from Southeast Asia began arriving, many working in meatpacking. Then, in the 1990s, a wave of Latinos appeared, said Sara Huddleston, a native of Mexico first elected to the Storm Lake City Council more than four years ago.
Today, minority residents make up more than 40 percent of the population, law enforcement officials here say; the numbers in the local schools, the authorities there say, are even higher — 49 percent Hispanic, 10 percent Asian, 4 percent African-American.
What no one knows is how many of the immigrants are illegal. At Tyson Fresh Meats, which now owns the plant that was first built in 1953 and employs 1,800 people (about half of them Hispanic), officials said they had “zero tolerance” for employing people who were not authorized to work in the United States.
Residents here seem sympathetic to the companies; people who want to cheat will find a way to do it, they said. Most scoffed at the recent complaints against Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate, for employing a landscaping company that included illegal workers.
“It’s easy to say you’re against illegal immigration but how do you know who is who?” said Mike Rust, the owner of Rust’s Western Shed, which sells uniforms and work boots to Tyson employees.
Russell Eddie, a local Republican Party leader, said he thought illegal immigration would play a significant role in the presidential election. And Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has taken an extremely firm line against illegal immigration and has won three terms, said he heard from concerned constituents about it constantly.
But some Latinos here said the issue would backfire for the Republicans.
Raids in other meatpacking towns have left some people here fearful, said Roberto Gonzalez, who was working behind the counter of a Mexican restaurant. Some will not even venture outside now, Mr. Gonzalez said. But those who can vote, he said, will oppose the Republicans.
“To me, they look like they’re just about discrimination against Hispanics,” Mr. Gonzalez said, adding that he favored Mrs. Clinton. “She is for the Hispanics,” he said.
Inside the old Ken-A-Bob, now the Sichanh market, where the sign boasts “Mexican food” out front, Siamphay Khamphavong says she has yet to pick a candidate. Ms. Khamphavong, 21, who came to the United States from Laos at age 3 and whose relatives worked at the meatpacking plant before they bought this market, said she believed that immigration had brought a positive change to Storm Lake, that people mostly got along, that everyone could surely co-exist.
Still, she said, whoever becomes president must secure the border and stop illegal immigration right away. “If you don’t get the right papers, you need to go back,” she said. “You can’t just run in and not follow the rules.”
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**Image Courtesy of Eric Thayer for The New York Times: "I care about the illegal immigration issue a lot." DAVID F. FRIEDRICH, a farmer, with his wife, Patricia
