Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.
Lutheran Services in Iowa is struggling after the federal government reneged on a $1.5 million commitment to fund the nonprofit’s work in welcoming and aiding legal immigrants and refugees to Iowa. The controversy screams for more detail and better coverage than it has received from the news media so far.
Hundreds of newcomers to Iowa, and millions across the country aided by other charities, have been cut off from support authorized by Congress. The Trump administration’s decision to freeze the funding is grounded in misleading statements if not outright lies.
The way we are treating the world’s most vulnerable today stands in stark contrast to our country’s history. Consider a 19th century sonnet by poet Emma Lazarus, which expressed America’s aspirations as a nation of immigrants, and a vulgarity President Donald Trump expressed in the 21st century.
Lazarus wrote the sonnet about Statue of Liberty—the “Mother of Exiles,” as Lazarus called her. Here’s the key part of it, addressed to “ancient lands”:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Trump did not characterize much of the troubled world as “ancient lands” in January 2018, when he said he preferred immigrants from places like Norway to those from Haiti or “shithole countries” in Africa.
The “shithole”—perhaps racist—mentality, without that vulgar rhetoric unveiled, continues in Trump’s return to the White House. In recent fiscal years the highest percentage of immigrants and refugees had been from Trump’s “shithole countries.”
He and Elon Musk readily accepted unfounded claims that Lutheran agencies and others contrived a money-laundering scheme to misuse the aid money promised by Congress. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) quickly imposed funding freezes, supposedly in the interest of efficiency with taxpayer funds. So nonprofit agencies serving immigrants became one of the targets of reckless cost-cutting and (probably illegal) mass firings of federal government employees.
But the goal of using taxpayer funds efficiently was precisely why Congress turned to well-run charities in the first place. Under contract with the government, established nonprofits provided the 90 days of stipulated aid at lower costs than government could manage in starting new operations. The highly regarded Forbes Magazine lists several such non-profits, including Lutheran Services, among the nation’s “Top 100 Charities.”
As can be inferred from the Forbes rankings, the nation was doing a good job in welcoming vulnerable newcomers by lifting Liberty’s torch, “lamp beside the golden door.”
In mainstream media coverage of freezing the aid, however, I find no mention of how well run the nonprofit programs are. Coverage has focused on the cuts Lutheran Services and others have had to make in staff, because they may not be reimbursed for aid already given and won’t receive funds to aid some already here and those in the pipeline.
The news coverage does not clarify that the initiative to provide such aid came from Congress and not from selfish, money-hungry charities.
An example of such coverage was the Des Moines Register’s article, “Layoffs set for Lutheran Services in Iowa Federal funding freeze stops refugee integration.” The story reported on 28 anticipated layoffs across the state.
By email, I asked Kevin Baskins, one of the reporters bylined in the story, about some of the concerns raised above. He responded promptly and acknowledged the concerns were “valid.”
He pointed out that the article was based on a filing by Lutheran Services in Iowa on the website of Iowa Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. The website is run by a state agency, Iowa Workforce Development.
In the Register story, Baskins and Sabine Martin did provide one modest upside to the refugee issue—and it did not come from government.
Nicholas Wuertz, LSI’s director of immigrant and refugee community services, said most employees facing layoff may remain through the end of April:
“And that is only because Iowans have responded and have filled in the gap left by the lack of reimbursement and the stop work (order) and so we have been able to continue to help the families that just arrived here in the state, to continue to get kids in school, to health care appointments and adults into the workforce.”
Also, Baskins wrote in the email, he is pursuing other refugee concerns with Governor Kim Reynolds’ office.
Will he get a good response to help mark the 50th anniversary of then Governor Robert D. Ray welcoming the Tai Dam refugees Vietnam to Iowa in 1975?
Reynolds has so far sided with Trump’s approach, not the welcoming stance of Lazarus or Ray.
Meanwhile, Senate File 223, a bill introduced by Democratic State Senator Sarah Trone-Garriott and thirteen other Democrats, has been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It would appropriate $2.5 million from the state’s general fund to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, which would distribute funds to nonprofit agencies assisting in refugee resettlement operations in Iowa.
May Emma’s sonnet guide who best speaks for America.
Top image: Engraving of Emma Lazarus is from an 1889 collection of her poetry, available via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of the Statue of Liberty is by Carlos Delgado, available via Wikimedia Commons.
