Iowa Hispanic voters frustrated by U.S. campaign

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) - The church basement was filled with families celebrating the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but everyone around the table was talking about the U.S. election.

"I saw Joe Biden last night," said Irlanda Helgen, 59.

"What did he say?" the others wanted to know. No one needed to say they were talking about what the visiting Democratic candidate said about immigration.

The topic consumes Hispanics who have settled in this central Iowa town, where a meat-packing plant was raided by immigration agents a year ago and many undocumented workers were deported.

Just three weeks before Iowa kicks off the state-by-state battle to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates for the November 2008 presidential election, politicians are walking a careful line between appeasing anti-immigration sentiment and trying not to turn off Hispanic voters.

Helgen, a retired education worker who moved to Iowa from Panama 32 years ago, said Biden believes the border should be secured, immigrants must learn English and illegals should get to the back of the line.

"They all talk about the line. What line?" asked Sister Christine Feagan, who has worked as the Hispanic minister at St. Mary's Catholic Church for three years. She spoke with frustration about one woman who has been waiting 12 years to get "her papers" to live and work legally.

Long waits to become legal residents are the least of the immigrants' complaints. Those who have become U.S. citizens are struggling to find a candidate who seems honest about the hot-button issue.

"What they say all depends on where they are talking," said Moses Garcia, 48. His wife nodded. The Garcias became citizens about three years ago and this is their first chance to vote in a U.S. presidential election. They are frustrated.

"Some of them say one thing if they are on the Spanish channel, and later they say something different (to an English-speaking audience)," Martha Garcia said. "If you speak both languages, it's obvious."

"MORE LATINOS THAN FARMERS"

While the Census Bureau reported a 39 percent rise in Iowa's Latino population between 2000 and 2006, only 37,000 are registered to vote, a fraction of Iowa's 3 million people.

Still, Hector Avalos, director of the U.S. Latino Studies Program at Iowa State University, said Hispanic voters will matter in Iowa if the January 3 caucus is close. And they will become more powerful in coming years as the U.S.-born children of immigrants reach voting age.

"If Edwards and Clinton, say, are one point apart, it will make a difference," said Avalos. "There are now more Latinos than farmers in Iowa."

Avalos is an adviser to Democratic Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois who is running neck-and-neck in Iowa with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is in third place.

While Republicans like President George W. Bush once courted Hispanic voters, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment has convinced most Republicans to take a tough stand against illegal immigration. This leaves Democrats to try to gain Hispanic support without alienating white voters, Avalos said.

A study by the Pew Hispanic Center last week found 57 percent of registered Hispanic voters now call themselves Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, while just 23 percent align with the Republican Party.

Feagan said most of the church's voting parishioners lean Democratic. When Obama's campaign organized a "how to caucus" event for interested voters, dozens attended.

Helgen has seen the top seven Democratic candidates, and Republican John McCain, and spoken to most of them. She likes New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is Hispanic.

But she is frustrated by the equivocation by some of the candidates, who seem afraid to be too immigrant-friendly.

"Hillary did not even talk about immigration when she was in Marshalltown," said Helgen.

In Des Moines, voter Sofia Aguilera, 26, was just as disappointed after attending part of Obama's rally with TV megastar Oprah Winfrey.

"All they talk about is the border, nobody talks about putting more money into the system to process paper faster so people can become legal," said Aguilera, a social worker.

(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; editing by Chris Wilson)