Senator LEAHY. and Senator KENNEDY for his strong work on getting this bill through and making it a decent. fair. but yet strong bill to protect our national security and to protect our law enforcement in this country. My State of Iowa. I am proud to say. has a long history of welcoming new immigrants. We have a growing immigrant Muslim population from Asia and the Middle East. In fact. Cedar Rapids. IA. is home to the oldest mosque in America. and we are proud of that. A quarter of a century ago. responding to the plight of Vietnamese and Laotian boat people. former Governor Robert Ray introduced programs to bring more than 30.000 of these refugees to our State. Because of his courageous humanitarian leadership. thousands of Iowans opened their homes and their hearts to these new immigrants. More recently. tens of thousands of immigrants have come to Iowa from Latin America and elsewhere. They have come here in search of two things: work and freedom. Work. in order to feed and clothe their families. and freedom. to learn and to develop their talents. and to grow. In most cases. they have found work. The Iowa economy is hungry for immigrants who are willing to do jobs that basically are physically demanding. oftentimes dangerous. one example. of course. being the meat packing industry. But not all of these new immigrants have found freedomthe freedom to learn and to grow and to develop their talents. Earlier this month. at United Trinity Methodist Church in Des Moines. I met with a group of new immigrants. an undocumented family. They told me about the hardships they face. They live in constant fear.
Keywords matched
refugees immigrant undocumented immigrants