Protesters hear no response from Iowa State Patrol over immigration traffic stop

CEDAR RAPIDS — Protesters gathered Wednesday outside the Iowa State Patrol office in Cedar Rapids to hand-deliver a complaint that initially was filed last month about immigration enforcement during an April traffic stop — and has yet to receive a response from the patrol.

The protest was organized by Escucha Mi Voz, the Iowa City-based nonprofit that filed the complaint in April. Ninoska Campos, a member and organizer with Escucha Mi Voz, was one of seven Latin American construction workers who were stopped April 18 by an Iowa State Patrol officer outside Dubuque.

According to the complaint, filed about a week later, the trooper held the seven construction workers, who were on their way home to Iowa City, for almost an hour while he investigated their immigration status.

“This time it was me. It was my family and friends,” Campos said, in Spanish, after the protest. “I don’t know how many other people this has happened to before.”

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The protest started at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in southwest Cedar Rapids, where the nonprofit had planned to accompany an immigrant woman, Reina Marroquin, to an immigration check-in.

The group regularly accompanies immigrants to these check-ins, as a way of showing support for those navigating the immigration process.

This would have been Marroquin’s fifth check-in with ICE this year, but she found out Tuesday night the meeting was canceled, and she won’t be required to check in again until December.

After announcing that Marroquin’s check-in had been canceled — which protest organizers counted as a victory and attributed to ICE officials finding out about the planned protest and wanting to prevent it — the group traveled to the Iowa State Patrol office in Cedar Rapids, where protesters asked a trooper to come outside and receive the official complaint and a petition with 800 signatures.

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Trooper Justin Boecker received the complaint. Boecker works in District 13, which covers 11 counties in Southeast Iowa. He said he was there Wednesday covering for District 11 troopers — who work out of the Cedar Rapids office — who were unavailable.

The petition asked the patrol to respond to the officially filed complaint and suspend any immigration enforcement against the individuals who were part of the April 18 traffic stop, as well as end an agreement that the patrol entered into with ICE in March. The agreement established a task force of three special agents from the Iowa State Patrol who were given authority to perform some immigration-related law enforcement activities in Iowa, including arresting individuals in violation of immigration laws and issuing immigration detainers.

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“(The agreement) does not enhance public safety, which is your responsibility. It erodes public safety,” Tom Mohan, an Escucha Mi Voz member who responded to assist the immigrant workers after the traffic stop, told Boecker.

“We still don’t understand why the stop occurred,” Campos told Boecker through a translator. “I’m here today to give you my complaint again. I’ve submitted this but haven’t heard back.”

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Boecker took the complaint, which organizers had printed out on a large poster, and gave the protesters a phone number to contact the District 10 office, stating that is where the April 18 traffic stop occurred. He then walked away to go back inside the building, despite requests that he stay and listen as organizers read a letter that Escucha Mi Voz had included with the petition.

The state patrol has not responded to multiple requests from The Gazette about whether it has started an internal investigation as a result of Escucha Mi Voz’s complaint, or whether the trooper involved in the April 18 traffic stop, Devon Baumgartner, is a member of the immigration task force.

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