County in Trump country chooses immigrants

GOSHEN, Indiana — As congregants at Silverwood Mennonite Church chatted around a Sunday potluck spread, Mike Yoder, a county commissioner for 13 years and a dairy farmer for much longer, huddled with Pastor Jeremy Shue at the edge of the hall.

There was a very good chance, Yoder confided, that the nation’s newest immigration detention center would soon rise from a soybean field north of town.

Yoder needed no reminder of the potential for conflict. Immigrants are valued in Elkhart County, but the Republican had paid close attention when nearly two-thirds of the county’s voters backed Donald Trump for president after a campaign in which he lambasted immigrants.

“It was like a microcosm of all the different issues of immigration,” Yoder said, “right here in this county.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has long sought to consolidate immigrants held in scattered Midwest jails. Since 2011, contractors have proposed detention centers in seven communities near Chicago, from the exurb of Crete, Illinois, to the steel center of Gary, Indiana.

Last fall, ICE put out a request for new detention sites near Chicago, Detroit, Salt Lake City and St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as in south Texas, as it sought to expand capacity from 40,000 Pepe Urzua, a roofer who arrived from Mexico eight years ago, cradles his two-month-old daughter, Luna, as his wife, Betty, holds their daughter, Scarlet, during the First Fridays street festival in Goshen, Ind. “It’s a place where you want to raise your kids.” Urzua said of the community. But his wife, who came to the U.S. at 2 years old, said opposition to the proposed ICE facility does not mean immigrants are fully accepted there.

migrants to 51,000.

A proposal by CoreCivic Inc., one of the nation’s largest private prison companies, put Elkhart County on that list.

The county, two hours east of Chicago, is the hub of the booming recreational vehicle industry with around 2 percent unemployment. A large Amish population has long provided many factory workers, but with 9,000 openings, “we have a lot of jobs that nobody wants,” said Yoder.

Immigrants have filled much of the gap in the workforce, yet residents remain divided. More than 7,000 packed an Elkhart school gym in May to cheer Trump. But the county seat of Goshen

— dotted with multilingual yard signs proclaiming “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor”— is a counterweight, home to a Mennonite college and large Latino population.

Yoder jumped in, trying for a dialogue instead of a dispute.

When Yoder heard about the detention center, he knew it might antagonize people, such as Richard Aguirre, who had spent months helping start an ID card program for Goshen’s immigrants.

But the project would be difficult to turn down, Yoder said. It would reap jobs and taxes. Many Republican voters would likely back it.

“I’d really like your help

communicating calmness,” the commissioner said.

“My reaction was, ‘No way!’” Aguirre said.

That night, he started a Facebook page for the Coalition Against the Elkhart County Immigration Detention Center. Activists had already planned a rally to celebrate the ID cards. Aguirre recast it as a protest.

Aguirre climbed to the top of some granite steps, handing a microphone to Felipe Merino, an immigration attorney and the president of Goshen’s school board.

“I want you to raise your hands if you believe that we do not want an immigration detention facility in Elkhart County, Indiana!” Merino said.

More than 200 thrust fists from under umbrellas. “No!” they shouted. But CoreCivic officials were coming to meet business leaders, Yoder later said to Aguirre. Activists, whose online group had swelled to more than 2,000, organized a news conference so representatives from the Nashville-based company would arrive to find their proposal in headlines.

The employers’ biggest issue was that a detention center “would create concern and fear within the Latino community and would lead them to relocate,” said CoreCivic spokesman Steve Owen, who attended the meeting.

“That, to me, was the defining moment,” said Yoder.

The next day, Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman released a letter that said, in part:

“Any tax dollars generated by the project wouldn’t be enough to offset the longlasting damage such a facility would do to our county,” he wrote, backed by 45 CEOs and civic leaders. “Join us in showing all newcomers to our communities how welcoming we are.”

Yoder counseled CoreCivic officials to think over their next move. It came the following Monday.

“After careful consideration,” a company official wrote, “CoreCivic has decided to withdraw its application.”

“We won!” Aguirre posted on Facebook. “We won!”