Midwest Migrant Flood

Iowa Recruits Immigrants to Boost Population

Iowa needs people. Its aging workers are retiring in droves and its young people are heading elsewhere for better jobs. So, in a pitch echoing the words of poet Emma Lazarus who spoke of welcoming the world's "huddled masses," Democrat Gov. Tom Vilsack wants to aggressively recruit immigrants to settle in Iowa. Vilsack's 2010 strategy, developed by a team of business and civic leaders, calls for an additional 310,000 workers by 2010. He may need to ask the federal government to designate Iowa an "immigration enterprise zone" that would provide exemptions to immigration quotas. ALSO SEE: IOWANS DON'T WANT IMMIGRANTS WOOED

Springfield, Massachusetts

Dropout rate runs higher for Hispanics

Reflecting a statewide picture, the dropout rates for Hispanic students in Western Massachusetts school systems tend to be higher than rates for other minority populations, according to state Department of Education figures. With a few exceptions, Western Mass. districts reflected a trend of higher Hispanic dropouts than other minority groups - a troubling statistic that local superintendents said they are committed to improving through school- and community- based programs.

Columbus, Montana

Illegal immigrants detained, released, arrested

Two Montana Highway Patrol officers weren't sure what to do with the 12 suspected illegal aliens they found in a van Sunday morning after a traffic stop on Interstate 90 west of Columbus. "There was no way to transport all these people," an MHP spokeswoman said. The closest Border Patrol agent was in Laurel, the spokeswoman said, "But he was in church so we couldn't get hold of him." The next closest agent was in Great Falls......

Sarita, Texas

Border Patrol is negotiating return to Kenedy ranch

Five months have passed since the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation rid the ranch of federal agents. The Border Patrol set fires, broke electronic fences and violated the human rights of immigrants, the Catholic foundation said then. The Border Patrol can't come back soon enough for Kenedy County Sheriff Rafael Cuellar Jr. When the agents were banished, he was left alone with the hot, dirty and often gruesome task of patrolling some 235,000 acres of scrubby pastures.

Washington

Gore 'shocked' by migrant death toll, may go softer on border policies

Appearing before the National Council of La Raza, Gore vowed -- if elected president -- to soften the Clinton administration's tougher border-enforcement practices, which critics blame for the deaths if illegal aliens along the border. Gore's statements appeared to represent a sharp turnaround, given the hundreds of millions of dollars the Clinton administration has spent over the past seven years on a wave of highly publicized border crackdowns from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas.

Washington

IMMIGRANT LABOR FORCE IN U.S. UP SHARPLY

As employers clamor for more foreign- born workers and as tens of thousands of Mexicans slip across the border each year, the percentage of immigrant workers in the nation's labor force has climbed to its highest level in seven decades. New figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the number of immigrant workers jumped to 15.7 million last year, up 17 percent from three years earlier. It's estimated that nearly 5 million of these workers are illegal immigrants [aliens].

South Florida

44 Chinese and Haitian Illegals Caught

Serene seas Saturday night and early Sunday may have been the lure behind two separate landings of illegal immigrants on South Florida's coastline. "It looked like a swimming pool," Mike Flanagan, a senior patrol agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, said of the Atlantic Ocean. Border Patrol agent Mike Flanagan described both the Haitians and the Chinese as uncooperative. He said he suspected the illegals came to Florida through the Bahamas.