Iowa bishop: Immigration detainees here are 'tense,' 'isolated' and 'scared'

After visiting with immigration detainees Thursday morning at the Polk County Jail, Bishop Richard Pates described the individuals he met as "tense," "isolated," and "scared."

"One father was just picked up and now his whole life has changed dramatically," he told reporters after his visit.

Pates, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, held a prayer service and met with detainees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, as part of a wider U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops initiative called Share the Journey. Those detainees are held at the Polk County Jail with general population inmates, officials said.

After his visit, he called on public officials to pass immigration reform that provides a path for legal residency for undocumented immigrants. In particular, he said Congress must reauthorize the Deferred Action for Arrivals program, which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children.

"I think it's just common sense, rational," he said in a conference room at the jail.

When asked whether he thought the government could achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the current political climate, Pates said "we have to keep working at it."

"And you know, we believe in miracles," he said. "I think in a very special way we have to keep our attention to it. It is a moral issue for us and we will not relent."

President Donald Trump rescinded the DACA program in September, but gave Congress six months to preserve it through legislation. The president has also called for a 2,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and has plans for an increase in federal immigration jails across the country as his administration ramps up enforcement efforts.

Pates said stricter immigration enforcement has spread fear across parishes in the diocese.

"You create a lot of disruption in people's lives that is really unhealthy and not needed," he said. "Why are we doing this? They want to be here, they're contributing, they're part of the American dream."

Shawn Neudauer, spokesman for ICE's region that includes Iowa, said arrests have been increasing locally since the president's January 25 executive orders — which took a harder line on immigration enforcement. Still, Neudauer pointed out that overall deportations are down.

He said the agency does not conduct immigration raids, only "targeted enforcement actions in which specific individuals are sought."

The St. Paul, Minnesota, office oversees immigration enforcement in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Missouri. The agency made 143,470 arrests in fiscal year 2017 across those seven states — up from 110,104 in the previous fiscal year.

ICE deported 98,420 people for non-criminal immigration violations in the seven-state area in fiscal year 2017 — slightly down from 101,586 in the previous fiscal year.

Earlier in the day, several local officials separately pressed the need for immigration reform at a Greater Des Moines Partnership forum in downtown Des Moines.

One of the panelists, Bob Riley, chairman of Pleasant Hill-based Feed Energy Company, held up a binder he used while serving on a governor's workforce council in 1998 to press how long such discussions have been occurring.

"Exactly the same things that were being said then are being said today," he said. "And we haven’t progressed very far. I'm kind of interested in finishing this."

Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Tom Ahart said school staff members have been visiting with DACA recipients and their families in recent weeks. The school board in February voted to create "sanctuary" schools, barring staff from asking students about their immigration statuses.

On Thursday, Ahart described one DACA recipient he recently met who is preparing to graduate from the home building program at Central Campus. The student is "work-ready" right now and has aspirations for future development, but uncertain about his immigration status, Ahart said.

"There’s a tremendous chilling effect for the families and the children of those families when these issues surface," he said. "They're in crisis mode."