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Immigration advocates try to ease deportation fears in a conservative corner of Iowa

A smiling lady with dark brown hair is standing in front of a navy blue wall. She is wearing a light green sweatshirt that says Atlas. She is standing in front of a sign that says Atlas and Center for Financial Education.
Sheila Brummer
/
Iowa Public Radio
Lily Van Beek works as a bilingual mentor for Atlas in Sioux Center. “There's a lot of misinformation going on — there's a lot of rumors and comments going back and forth and they're making the community really anxious," she said.

At the Sioux County Livestock Co., a family restaurant in Sioux Center, four generations shared a table for lunch. Kelly Bomgaars joined her gray-haired mother, Rosie, her daughter Breena and her grandson Cash.

All are residents of Sioux County — an increasingly diverse part of Iowa, where an estimated 15% of people are Latino.

It’s also Trump country, where nearly nine out of ten voters, including Bomgaars, voted for President Donald Trump.

“Oh, you bet! I love him,” Bomgaars said. “Because he fights for the American people.”

A family is sitting in a booth eating breakfast and lunch food. There is a white-haired grandma with glasses, a smiling middle-aged women in a beige hoodie, a toddler and younger woman with long-blonde hair and glasses.
Sheila Brummer
/
Iowa Public Radio
Kelly Bomgaars (second to the left) and her family enjoy lunch at the Sioux County Livestock Co. in Sioux Center on Jan. 29, 2025. Bomgaars supports easier pathways for immigrants to become citizens of the U.S.
"As long as you come legally, I'm all for everybody coming here."
Kelly Bomgaars, Sioux County resident and Trump supporter

She also likes his immigration and border control policies. On Inauguration Day, Trump signed executive orders on immigration threatening mass deportations.

“As long as you come legally, I'm all for everybody coming here. We have a beautiful country — but speak English. That's another big thing,” Bomgaars said. “Her grandparents were not from here too," she said, indicating to her mother. "They had to come over through New York when they came in."

Steve Berlinski sat a few tables away. He’s in the area to work on a construction project at a dairy farm alongside people from a few different countries.

“You just kind of feel for them, that they're putting out everything that we value as Americans, you know, the ethics, the labor ethos and all of that," Berlinski said. “All the Hispanic migrant populations I know are documented. But I think overwhelmingly, the community themselves, they have a lot of relatives that are undocumented, and they're worried about them — especially the children.”

A man with blue eyes and a bald head is posing for a photo at a restaurant. He isn't smiling but still looks kind. He is wearing a muted green thermal shirt with a couple of buttons on the top and a black shirt underneath. There is a glass of lemon water to his back left.
Sheila Brummer
/
Iowa Public Radio
Mike Berlinski, a native of Michigan, has spent the past two years working on a renewable natural gas plant project in Sioux County. "A lot of industries, they're not going to survive without migrant labor," he said.

People who work with the immigrant community in Sioux County say the threat feels real.

Federal immigration officials across the U.S. have started acting on Trump’s promise to deport millions of people in the country without legal status. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced thousands of arrests nationally in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, with a focus on those with criminal records.

Federal agents conducted raids in a number of major cities. So far, northwest Iowa authorities report none locally.

Sightings of ICE officers in Iowa have set off rumors of large-scale immigration raids. While those rumors have been unfounded, many worry about what might happen next.

Bilingual mentor shares her personal immigration story

Lily Van Beek works as a bilingual mentor for Atlas, a faith-based nonprofit. She gives out all kinds of advice, from finances to child care. Her days are now filled with trying to reduce tension on a much larger level.

“From my clients to my friends in town, they're just afraid if they go to the post office they won't come back because they get pulled over,” Van Beek said. “The kids are so afraid to go back home and to an empty house if parents don't come back — because they got taken.”

"They're just afraid."
Lily Van Beek, Atlas bilingual mentor

Van Beek personally knows the desperation they feel. She’s now a U.S. citizen, but about 20 years ago, she illegally traveled to Sioux County by paying a coyote $9,000 to get over the border with her young son.

“You’re in a warehouse. Someone is gonna pick you up, and then from that warehouse to a different warehouse, and then to a different warehouse,” Van Beek recalled. “If you ask me now, I wouldn't do it again.”

They made it, with Van Beek crawling through a tunnel alone and her son leaving by car with strangers pretending to be his American parents.

“It was either I go back and I lose my money, or I trust and I go,” she said.

Van Beek married and started a decade-long journey to citizenship that required her to return to Mexico for two years.

Her advice for immigrants is to be prepared, have documents ready and know what to do if ICE comes calling.

“Awareness. I want to say that is the biggest thing, like to be able to share the truth, not fear,” Van Beek said.

Calming fears through community building and trust

Another community leader who's working to bring calm to all the chaos is Jason Lief, a pastor and mobilizer with the National Immigration Forum, an organization that advocates for solutions to keep the most vulnerable safe.

A photo of a burly, long-beareded man wearing a flannel shirt with burgandy brown and other simular colors. He has his hands in his blue jeans.
Sheila Brummer
/
Iowa Public Radio
Jason Lief is pastor of María Magdalena Reformed Church and community organizer for the National Immigration Forum. “When we moved to Sioux Center about 18 years ago — most of my neighborhood was white, Dutch heritage people — and it's changed — my neighbors are now Guatemalan and Mexican," he said.

“We’ve been trying to build trust in the community and business leaders have been trying to build trust. Law enforcement’s trying to build trust, and when these kinds of fears happen, it just puts a strain on some of that,” Lief said.

Picture of a brick storefront with a white protruding bay window. The sign says Tienda G-T Rosy. It's a Guatemalan grocery store. There is a road to the left of the store. And a line of stores to the right behind the main store.
Jason Lief
A Guatemalan store opened last year along Main Street in Sioux Center. Besides dry goods, the business also sells traditional handmade clothing.

Lief helps lead meetings in the area on the legal rights of immigrants. It's all an effort to help preserve what he calls a vibrant community, where Main St. now includes new businesses run by immigrants. There’s a bakery, restaurants and a Guatemalan grocery store.

“It adds life to the community and different perspectives to the community, which I think most of the people here would say has been a positive thing,” Lief said.

Lief hopes that once the initial shock has eased, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., agree on immigration reform that creates more legal pathways for immigrants to start new lives in northwest Iowa.

Sheila Brummer is IPR's Western Iowa Reporter, with expertise in reporting on immigrant and indigenous communities, agriculture, the environment and weather in order to help Iowans better understand their communities and the state. She's covered flooding in western Iowa, immigrants and refugees settling in Iowa, and scientific partnerships monitoring wildlife populations, among many more stories, for IPR, NPR and other media organizations. Brummer is a graduate of Buena Vista University.