A dozen local leaders sat down with Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke Wednesday to discuss immigration policy.

The group, along with audience and media members, was packed into a dining area at La Carreta Mexican Grill. O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, said he wanted to host the event to get more ideas about how to solve the divisive issue of national immigration policy.

“We need to tell and celebrate those stories right now, because immigrants are under attack unlike anytime I can remember in my lifetime,” he said.

O’Rourke connected the need for such stories with the shooting in his home town of El Paso about two weeks ago. Law enforcement in El Paso said the alleged shooter admitted to targeting Mexican people. Twenty-two were killed.

The local leaders at the table Wednesday called for national-level changes to be made to immigration policy.

“Why Congress has not figured out how to put 20 people in a room, 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, I don’t know,” said Marshalltown Mayor Joel Greer.

He said Marshalltown has benefited from its relatively high immigrant population. Greer said the city currently has three percent unemployment and benefits economically from immigrants and their families living in the city.

Marshalltown resident Maria Gonzalez lent her personal experience to the conversation. She talked about being brought to Marshalltown by her mother at the age of 3. Then, in 2006, she and her siblings were impacted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on the local meat packing plant, then known as Swift and now JBS.

“We kind of faced the raid on our own as children,” Gonzalez said.

In the more than 12 years since the raid, Gonzalez said she and her family, among other people who moved to Marshalltown from around the world, planted their roots in the city and are proud residents.

“These are people who are helping the community, driving the community,” Gonzalez said.

Several education leaders were also on the panel. Marshalltown Schools Superintendent Theron Schutte and Director of Instruction Lisa Stevenson said the schools serve any children that walk into the district’s buildings.

Schutte, a Marshalltown Schools alum, said the community and schools have changed since he was a student decades ago. However, he said the community has benefited from the recent influx of diversity and the schools work toward inclusiveness and readying all students for life after school.

“The reality is 64 percent of our overall school student body are students of color. Seventy-one percent of our kindergartners are students of color,” he said.

Several panelists also said the 2018 tornado, while devastating, did a lot to push Marshalltown residents of all different backgrounds to help one another.

O’Rourke said he worries about rhetoric from President Donald Trump when it comes to immigration policy, as well as the treatment of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We’ve got to connect the dots for folks, not only stop what we don’t like but, as the mayor said, come together – Republicans, Democrats, independents alike – and rewrite this country’s immigration laws in our own image,” he said.

Before the roundtable event, O’Rourke took a tour of the Iowa Valley Education and Training Center and spoke with staff and students involved in English as a second language and citizenship education.

He is one of 10 candidates to have qualified for the next round of Democratic presidential debates in September. Wednesday marked his third trip to Marshalltown.

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Contact Adam Sodders at

641-753-6611 or

asodders@timesrepublican.com