Immigration Summit to be held in Marshalltown

An immigration summit has been scheduled in Marshalltown on February 26. The summitt has been ogranized by the Marshalltown Times-Republican.

The T-R called for the summit in the wake of raids in December by agents with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Those agents detained nearly 100 workers from the Swift & Company plant in Marshalltown. At the same time, raids were taking place at other Swift & Company plants around the nation, leading to the detainment of more than 1,000 workers suspected to be working in the country illegally.

The goal of the summit is to spark a national dialogue on the issue, and give elected officials a chance to understand what the issues are at the grassroots level in order to formulate policy in Washington that better addresses the needs and concerns of the country.

Iowa's congressional delegation and Governor Culver have been invited to the summit. Rep. Latham has been very helpful in organizing the summit.

The Des Moines Register has a story this morning. Ken Larson, the managing editor of the Times-Republican, outlines the goals of the summit...

“We want to do two things — to make sure the higher officials we invite can walk away educated knowing that we’ve been doing immigration raids for how many decades, and the population continues to rise, so (the raids) are not working,” Larson said.

He said the second goal is to get lawmakers to introduce legislation to change immigration laws and bring common sense to the discussion.

“How can we more effectively handle immigration in this country, and how can we do it without damaging a community the way it did,” Larson said.

I won't be able to attend because the summit takes place on a Monday, but will post links and any news I hear about the event.