Maria “Olga” Sanchez of Moline, Ill. has been a counselor and community helper for 35 years who went to Postville and Waterloo, Iowa to offer translation services out of her own will. Sanchez said that she helped ten families in Waterloo who had family members arrested and were separated after the raids ICE conducted. “The people are getting anxious, the lists of those arrested are not updated,” she said. “Lots of people were arrested under one name that’s not their real name. The cases are tried as criminal and then processed to ICE. Many of the people did not understand what their families were charged with and I explained it to them, as simple as possible.”
She visited the church in Postville and said she saw 250 people but there are other people who need help. “The kids, the people were sad, scared like if someone was killed. There are more people hiding in other’s homes. We gave someone hamburgers, water,” she said.
“How do you tell a kid that immigration took their parents? This is dividing families and causing a physical, emotional trauma that not even counseling can provide for. Maybe a year of counseling and then maybe they’ll get better. One lady told me she was a neighbor [of an arrested worker] and said that she took charge of the kids after the parents were arrested,” she said.
More people are needed to help out with the raid in Postville. “We need to unite and help each other. We need to be comprehensible and help in these circumstances. Imagine an eight year old asking where’s mom. Tell me how the child doesn’t have resentment.” Sanchez said that many people can’t pay their bills, as half, if not all of a paycheck is gone and that many families are struggling to feed their children. Others have fled the area, Sanchez said, suspecting that some may have made it to the Quad Cities.
She said after the raid, she received numerous phone calls on whether ICE was coming to the Quad Cities. “There’s no information on when they’re coming. Know that if you’re working with false documentation, there are consequences. If you have a chance at citizenship, it can be annulled, weigh the pros and cons of the situation,” she said.
“So what are you going to do?,” she asked. “We are known as helping each other, as always being united but it’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another to do it. So if that day happens here and all the agencies unite, we can be ready here.”