Kevyn

The small town of Storm Lake Iowa is bustling while other small midwestern towns have empty homes and boarded up businesses. The secret to Storm Lakes success is simple, immigration and diversity. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/immigration-america-white-storm-lake-iowa-culture/#close

mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

Were these LEGAL immigrants? The story didn't say anything about it. I'm all for LEGAL immigrants.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

By using the term "immigrants" it would lead one to think they are legal and are immigrants rather than "undocumented" i******s.

Sassy Lass

Well, Kevyn, I have lived in Iowa all of my life. We are good people. We have extremely low unemployment. We are also a state of people who believes in the rule of law. If you're an illegal, you're not welcome. If you came here the right way, welcome to the United States and the state of Iowa!

pafret Loc: Northeast

Your link is heartwarming propaganda. There is no employer named Diversity and presumably these "immigrants" of unspecified nature are contributing labor or taxes to "help the town". If it is labor then this town has some industry which required workers; many other towns do not have that advantage. Is it possible that these immigrants have swarmed this town such that native born Americans from adjacent communities cannot get to the jobs available?

There was a town in Northeast Pennsylvania whose citizens were Americans of Slavic, Italian, Russian, Polish and even Greek ancestry. This town, starting around 2000 had a large influx of illegal invaders as well as some legal immigrants. Hazleton's citizens were locked in a battle with the squatter Hispanics who had turned their town into a pigsty and increased criminality through the roof. The Federal Government attacked the city of Hazleton for passing ordinances attempting to control the ability of these i******s to survive locally. It came to a head in 2006 after which the problem resolved itself; today Hazleton is peaceful and prospering. How was it accomplished? The population was 93% American w****s in 2000 and in 2016 it was 98% Hispanic. All of the natives were gone.

In 2006 war on i*****l i*********n, Hazleton's ex-mayor was 'ahead of our time'
Updated: APRIL 3, 2016 — 1:08 AM EDT
http://media.philly.com/images/800*533/SBARLETTA03.jpg
Camera icon AKIRA SUWA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER, FILE
Rep. Lou Barletta, 56, has represented the 11th District, a swath of counties in the state's conservative center, for five years. But in 2006, he was the Republican mayor of Hazleton.
by Michael Matza, Staff Writer

With the April 26 Pennsylvania primary near, Donald Trump has picked up the endorsement of a congressman who bears the battle scars of his own war on i*****l i*********n - one he lost, but does not regret.

Rep. Lou Barletta, 56, has represented the 11th District, a swath of counties in the state´s conservative center, for five years. But in 2006, he was the Republican mayor of Hazleton.

Rep. Lou Barletta, 56, has represented the 11th District, a swath of counties in the state's conservative center, for five years. But in 2006, he was the Republican mayor of Hazleton, a man both demonized and lionized for trying to bar the city's door against what he saw as an invasion of undocumented Latinos.

"It was uncharted territory for a city to try to do something about the problem of i*****l i*********n," he said in a recent interview. "Fast-forwarding to today, we were a bit ahead of our time."

Grandson of an Italian immigrant, Barletta ran a prosperous business painting lines on roads until he won his first mayoral e******n in 1999. He became convinced that "i*****l a***ns" were bringing crime to his hometown, overburdening its schools and public safety services, and clogging area emergency rooms, he recalled.

His tipping point came in spring 2006, during the second of his three terms, when city resident Derek Kichline, a 29-year-old father of three, was murdered. The two suspects were in the United States illegally.

Turning to the Internet, Barletta found a relevant ordinance from San Bernardino, Calif., crafted but never v**ed on, and "tweaked it," he said. Under his proposed law, landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants would be fined $1,000 per day and employers who hired them would lose their business licenses for five years. English would be Hazleton's "official language."


With Barletta present in a bulletproof vest, City Council passed the I*****l I*********n Relief Act, 4-1. But it never went into effect.

Federal courts ruled it unconstitutional, and the case ultimately was rebuffed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Hazleton was ordered to pay nearly $1.4 million in fees to the civil rights lawyers who fought the act. And as for the suspects in Kichline's murder, all charges were dropped, although one of the pair was deported and the other served time for an unrelated stabbing.

Hardly the outcome Barletta wanted. If he had it to do over?

The problem of i*****l i*********n "was created because the federal government didn't do its job - and still isn't doing its job," he said. "I was a mayor who said, 'I am going to try to do something.' Do I regret that? No."

His actions, he said, encouraged dozens of other municipalities to enact or attempt to enact local laws that target undocumented immigrants, that separate "the salt from the sugar."

His own political fortunes didn't seem to suffer. He is in his second term in Congress, and is running for ree******n this year.

Barletta backed Rick Santorum in the 2016 GOP p**********l race, until the former senator dropped out in early February.

Even before endorsing Trump, he opposed mainstream Republican efforts to derail his candidacy.

Trump is "talking to people, and hearing their frustration - the same frustration I had 10 years ago . . . born of the fact that the federal government refuses to enforce our laws and has not secured our borders," he said.

"We should be looking at why so many people support Donald Trump. Why is he winning? . . . There's a reason this is happening."

mmatza@phillynews.com