32 arrested by ICE agents on immigration violations in eastern Iowa

Iowa Rep. Dave Heaton heard a helicopter while sipping coffee at a local Mount Pleasant diner Wednesday morning, then learned immigration agents had surrounded a pre-stressed concrete plant outside of town.

Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, said he followed law enforcement cars out to Midwest Precast Concrete, located just west of the center of this town of 8,500, where U.S. Homeland Security had arrested 32 men — of which 22 were from Guatemala, seven were from Mexico, two were from El Salvador and one was from Honduras — on immigration violations, an ICE official said.

"I saw a bunch of men sitting on the ground," Heaton said, though he could not get close enough to see if they were handcuffed because police blocked off nearby streets.

The men will remain in custody pending removal proceedings or the outcomes of their cases, the ICE official said. The immigration arrests were part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

Heaton described himself as being really worried about children of those arrested.

"All of a sudden their dad is somewhere else," Heaton said. "Those kids are in our schools. They play on our soccer and baseball teams like any normal student, and suddenly, their life in one morning has been totally disrupted."

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Trey Hegar, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Mount Pleasant, said the church is a designated "safe place" for students and their families affected by the arrests. As of 3:30 p.m., the church had prepared snacks and gathered members of the congregation, waiting to hear whether children whose guardians were arrested will need assistance.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations — which investigates a variety of offenses from financial crimes to commercial fraud — as well as deportation officers with its Enforcement and Removal Operations, conducted the operation, said Shawn Neudauer, a regional ICE spokesman.

There was no threat to the public, Neudauer said. He declined to comment further.

Mount Pleasant Police, the Henry County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa State Patrol assisted federal agents in the investigation. The agencies referred questions from the Register to Homeland Security.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of Iowa did not return a call seeking comment. In a statement, the attorney's office said a federal warrant was executed in the city.

It was not clear what type of crime was being investigated. Neudauer declined to comment on where agents were conducting their operation.

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At about 9:30 a.m., Mount Pleasant City Councilman Bob Griffith said he saw a helicopter above the concrete plant, at 2001 W. Washington St., though he did not know any details about the arrests. Other council members said they learned about the arrests from media reports.

The arrests Wednesday come days away before the 10-year anniversary of the state's best-known immigration-related raid when nearly 400 people were detained May 12, 2008, at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville.

Of those detained, 306 faced criminal charges, and within two weeks, 297 were sentenced to five months in prison.

Late last year, President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of the corporation's former slaughterhouse executive, Sholom Rubashkin, who had been sentenced to 27 years for bank fraud and money laundering.

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