Iowa's immigrant workers expect a big December ICE check-in push and they're afraid

Update: At least 20 Iowa immigrants are to check in at Cedar Rapids’ ICE office Dec. 2. More expected Dec. 3.

Ruby Caceres (left) speaks to Iowa United Methodist Church leaders while fellow immigrant Eva Castro (far right) and Escucha Mi Voz volunteer Getsy Hernandez listen at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Lyle Muller)

A version of this column appeared in the Sunday, Nov. 30, The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA).

Eva Castro says she left Colombia to escape violence and hopes to stay in the United States after checking in Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the Cedar Rapids’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

She is not certain what will happen, though, and has been dreading the visit for more than a month.

“I am very scared, with everything that is going on in the immigrant community,” she said in an interview I did with her and another Iowa immigrant a while back in anticipation of Castro’s ICE check-in.

She should expect a lot of company. Catholic Workers House leaders in Iowa City said at least 15 immigrant families have asked the organization to accompany them to mandatory check-ins Dec. 2, and six have asked for Wednesday, Dec. 3.

“That’s 21 families in 24 hours,” an email from the group stated. “We have never seen numbers like this. There is a real risk that ICE is stacking check-ins to meet their end-of-year deportation quotas.”

Monday, Dec. 1 Update: Catholic Workers House updated its numbers, with 20 check-ins now scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 2, plus more Wednesday.

Tuesday, Dec. 2 Update: Eva Castro was successful in her ICE check-in and may stay in the United States until her next check-in next year.

As you should expect by now, Eastern Iowans who support the immigrants’ right to due process and a fair chance at being in this country will be at the Cedar Rapids office this week.

Castro will take mental baggage into her session. Her daughter, Laura, is Jorge Elieser González Ochoa’s wife. González Ochoa was arrested by ICE agents Sept. 25 in a public show of force at the downtown Iowa City Bread Garden grocery store and deli.

“I have to worry about myself and Jorge and or my daughter, because, yeah, they’re experiencing a difficult time right now, and I’m the only form of emotional support that she has right now,” Castro said through an interpreter.

Video shows men who do not identify themselves throwing González Ochoa, who worked at Bread Garden, to the floor and binding his hands behind his back. González Ochoa calls for help in the video and asks the agents who they are but the agents do not clearly state they are ICE agents.

I know emotions are high after events last week, although Donald Trump’s leadership approach of lumping every single person into groups of people he can blame for one person’s irrational acts has done a lot to escalate those emotions. But, how cruel do we have to be as a nation?

Federal authorities charged González Ochoa with fraud and misuse of documents, use of immigration identification document not lawfully issued, and false representation of social security number. He was in the Muscatine County Jail awaiting movement on his U.S. District Court case following a detention hearing Oct. 20. He is to appear in court again later this week, the same week as Castro’s check-in.

Castro said he is innocent. “We shouldn’t be targeted or accused of something because we are immigrants,” she said.

Castro has been talking at various places along with Ruby Caceres, an immigrant Iowan who came here from Venezuela. Caceres said immigrants going into ICE check-ins appreciate support from those who stand outside the Cedar Rapids ICE building and send words of encouragement. “You can take away our fear,” she said.

Caceres works for Amazon, making deliveries. She was a chemistry teacher in Venezuela, she said. She said she walked across the jungle in Venezuela with her seven-year-old son to eventually get to the United States and Iowa.

“Immigrant workers are often the backbone of industry, to keep society going,” she said at an October gathering of United Methodist pastors, including the state bishop, and other church leaders outside the ICE building. “Protecting immigrant workers is not charity. It is justice.”

Asked later in an interview what we born-and-raised Iowans fail to understand about the situation facing her and other modern-day immigrants in this country, Caceres said: “Many things, because you are from here. You are a white people. You know you won’t be discriminated, you won’t suffer discrimination.”

Caceres said the explanation was hard to get across but did an effective attempt at doing so. “When you move in a new city, it’s difficult figuring out this new city. But, when you move in another country, when you don’t speak the languages, you don’t know anybody. And, you feel the people don’t like you. It’s really hard. And, you have to be fearless to be here and make your future better.”

I have talked with a lot of well meaning people who say they favor legal immigration and that at least those trying the legal way get to stay in this country. I give these folks the benefit of doubt because they — all of us — cannot fathom how that legal way works. It is not an easy path.

Bram Elias, University of Iowa clinical law professor and director of the college’s Immigration Law Clinic, said at an October immigration rights forum in Iowa City it takes seven to eight years after applying to get a required interview for legal immigration. Losing that round sends the immigrant to a removal system in which it takes up to nine years to be heard.

Flatwater Press recently reported that immigration court judges have been overwhelmed with the increase in cases during the Trump administration so the immigrants are forced to wait.

Immigration fees mount during all of these years, which linger into as many as 18 or 19 years, Elias said.

Then, there is that due process thing. Emily Anderson, who does a good job covering immigration for The Gazette out of Cedar Rapids wrote last week about a man in the Washington County Jail who was held, despite no pending criminal charges, because ICE wanted him held so they could issue a deportation order Nov. 19.

Noel Lopez grew up in Iowa from the age of two and graduated from West Liberty High School, where he played on a state-ranked soccer team. Now, Lopez, who was born in Mexico, appears headed to a country he knows nothing about, Anderson, Iowa Starting Line and other news organizations reported.

Yeah, immigrants are scared when in ICE’s custody.

A sign at the Cedar Rapids ICE office warns demonstrators against being on private property where the office exists. (Photo by Lyle Muller)

CALLING OUT OPPRESSION

Pressure is mounting against inhumane practices used to deport migrants out of the United States. In November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the federal government’s crackdown.

“Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation,” the bishops’ condemnation read, in part. “We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

Meanwhile, the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, refugee advocates and refugee resettlement organizations nationwide have issued denouncements of an Oct. 31 Donald Trump announcement that his refugee admissions goal is 7,500 for fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1 for the federal government.

Trump’s priority will be white South Africans, again raising questions about racial preferences, or, to drop the sanitization, racist policies.

In Iowa, the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice has expressed concern about Marion County signing an agreement to help with immigrant round-ups, which the organization’s leaders say makes officers less available to deal with local public safety matters.

This comes amid a Nov. 10 Iowa Capital Dispatch’s Clark Kauffman report about immigrants scooped off Iowa’s streets lingering in Iowa jails without due process. U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa ruled that two refugees wrongly were denied bond hearings that Trump administration policy says they did not deserve. One of them crossed the border with her son and husband at the Sasabe, Arizona, entry I visited in January 2024.

The National Immigration Law Center published an Oct. 3 article that covers what its author, Sarah Krieger, says are the costs of the Trump administration’s cruelty when it comes to mass deportations. These costs include harming the nation’s economy, health, society and safety.

“This administration has only just begun spending billions of dollars to unleash a violent and hate-filled agenda—money that should be used to build our communities up, not tear them down,” Krieger wrote. “Without greater outcry by elected officials, businesses, civic leaders, and the public leading to a change in direction, we may be in for much darker days.”

The U.S. side of the border with Mexico in Sasabe, Arizona. (Photo by Lyle Muller)

JOHNSON COUNTY SURVEY REVEALS POVERTY

Meanwhile, a Salud, Techo y Trabajo report, from early 2024 by Johnson County Public Health, the University of Iowa College of Nursing and immigrant-led advocacy group Escucha Mi Voz Iowa, revealed that more than one-half of Latino immigrants in Johnson County were in a state of chronical homelessness.

Virtually all of those surveyed earned low- to middle-incomes, or less than 80 percent of area median incomes, the study showed.

Those responding to the survey were 123 meatpacking plant workers, 46 restaurant workers, 37 hotel workers, 33 factory workers, 30 construction workers, 26 temp workers, 22 hospital workers, 21 domestic workers, 12 Wal-mart employees and four warehouse workers upon whom you depend. Another 36 were unemployed workers. Eighty of those responding worked on farms, in schools, or in maintenance, landscaping or other jobs, the survey stated.

Current immigration policy is piling onto what already was a difficult situation. The study was conducted in October and November 2023 to detect barriers for getting affordable health care to working immigrants.

“Nearly one in five respondents report having at least one serious medical condition such as asthma or diabetes, including 22 percent of Hispanic respondents and 7 percent of Black African respondents,” the report stated.

“One in five respondents reported they are not able to afford groceries every week, including 27 percent of Hispanic/Latino respondents and 11 percent of Black African respondents. Twenty percent of respondents stated they do not know where they can access free food in the Johnson County community, including 28 percent of Hispanic/Latino respondents and 8 percent of Black African respondents.”

Not knowing English as a primary language and their immigration status play big roles, too, for immigrants’ stress factor. Please, store that complaint about learning the language. Flopping on the local language or failing to adopting a different country’s ways does not stop white Americans from seeking homes in, say, Tuscany, or through groups like Republicans Overseas. Republicans Overseas, founded in 2013, exists “to inspire the estimated nine million Americans living overseas to engage more fully in the U.S. political process,” its website states.

So, a little kindness outside the ICE office in Cedar Rapids can be important for people who are frightened about what awaits them inside during their check-in. That is where the accompanying companions who are as close to the office door as ICE allows come into play, and why they will be out in bone-chilling weather Tuesday morning.

“It’s very important because, when people show up, the government can see that, you know, we’re not doing things,” Castro said through her interpreter, Getsy Hernandez of Escucha Mi Voz, referring to suspicions about the immigrants raised by those favoring aggressive deportation.

“We’re just immigrants, and we have people standing by us and supporting us throughout this.”

Signs held by immigrant supporters during a summer 2025 ICE check-in in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Photo by Lyle Muller)

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A big shout-out to my friend, former Gazette colleague and now fellow member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, Mike Hlas. I have know Mike for a lot of years and am glad that one of the nation’s best sportswriters will bring his wit and wisdom, which goes far beyond sports and into the humanity we all face, to the collaborative. You may find all of our writers here.

ALSO, join us Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the Harkin Institute in Des Moines for the annual Iowa Writers’ Collaborative holiday gathering. The Collaborative’s paying subscribers get to attend free but non-subscribers may attend, too, with a $35 a ticket. RSVP HERE by Friday, Dec. 5.

Order here for my book: A Messy Church: An Iowa Church’s Journey Through United Methodist Celebrations, Controversies. I will send it signed, if you want.