The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 1

iliwtte falter The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon DesMoinesRegisler.com Price 50 Cents Thursday, December 14, 2006 A sr odd mm mm mot Gartner: Quitting would damage system 'The issue is, who governs the University of Iowa? The Board of Regents or the regents president says. CONFUSION FOR FAMILIES CHERTOFF'S WARNING 1,282 ARRESTS Officials say 65 arrests are tied to an identity-theft ring while 1,212 workers are suspected of being illegal immigrants. Relatives search for loved ones as Immigration and Customs Enforcement refuses to say where the detainees are being held. "This happened to Swift. It could easily happen elsewhere," he says.

"We're going to try to make it inhospitable to break the law here." 2 I. -11-'. 1 By JONATHAN R00S and LYNN CAMPBELL REGISTER STAFF WRITERS Iowa Board of Regents President Michael Gartner, under attack for the board's handling of a failed effort to hire a new University of Iowa president, said Wednesday the board's independence would be damaged were he to succumb to a "lynch-mob mentality" and heed critics' calls for his resignation. "If I resigned, I think that it would set the system back for another 20 years," said i i j' jf' V-r--" I I i'J current six-year term ends in I Ma mi 2011. "I'm not particularly enjoying my life right now, especially with spring train Gartner J.

RODNEY WHITETHE REGISTER Ilda Anguiano, left, spends time outside Camp Dodge Wednesday looking for information on her husband, Rosalio Barraza Soto, who was taken a day earlier during raids at the Swift meat-packing plant in Grand Island, Neb. The Marshalltown plant also was raided. Gamp Dodge appears to be detention site 9 percent of Swift's work force arrested ing right around the corner," said the Iowa Cubs owner. "But it's very important that the regents do what the law says they're supposed to do, which is to be the governing body for the three universities and to hire a president" for each. Gartner indicated that votes taken by the of I Faculty Senate and other groups registering a lack of confidence in the regents' leadership have their roots in a struggle over who's in charge of the campus.

"It's not about the president search. It's really a governance issue The issue is, who governs the University of Iowa? The Board of Regents or the faculty over there?" he said on a taping of "Iowa Press." The program will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 11:30 a.m. Sunday on Iowa Public Television. Gartner's critics include Marvin Pomerantz, a former Board of Regents president who on Wednesday offered a scathing review of the current board and portrayed the unsuccessful of I presidential search as a disaster waiting to happen.

Pomerantz, a Des Moines businessman who was re MORE INSIDE Students, schools face uncertainty Students at Marshalltown High School said watching busloads of arrested family and friends roll though the city will be a watershed moment in their lives. Page 2A ON THE WEB More photos from day after the raid See photo galleries of Swift Co. employees returning to work Wednesday in Marshalltown, and of Camp Dodge, which has apparently become a detention facility at DesMoinesRegister.com. By PHILIP BRASHER REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU Washington, D.C. The arrest of workers at meatpacking giant Swift Co.

the largest such raid in U.S. history shows that the government is serious about cracking down on illegal immigration, officials say. This time, federal agents were armed with criminal charges, accusing some workers of identification theft and forgery, and disrupted not just one work site but an entire company. Some 1,282 Swift workers were arrested, about 9 percent of the work force at six plants. The detainees included 90 people arrested at Swift's pork processing facility at Marshalltown, where officials said the investigation began earlier this year.

"This happened to Swift. It could easily happen elsewhere," Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff said Wednesday. "We're going to try to make it inhospitable to break the law here." See RAID, Page 2A By WILLIAM PETR0SKI and ABBY SIMONS REGISTER STAFF WRITERS The Iowa National Guard Base at Camp Dodge in Johnston is apparently being used as a detention facility for some of the workers taken into custody Tuesday in a sweep of six meatpacking plants in the country. Families from Nebraska camped out Wednesday afternoon at Johnston Commons, near Northwest 70th Avenue, hoping to make contact with relatives who were arrested at the Swift Co. packing plant in Grand Island, Neb.

More than a dozen U.S. Homeland Security buses that transported workers could be seen on the grounds of Camp Dodge. But state and federal officials declined on Wednesday to confirm the whereabouts of any arrested workers. Tim Counts, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman in St. Paul, said the detainees are being held in a number of facilities in the Midwest.

He said one See CAMP, Page 2A gents president from 1987 to See GARTNER, Page 4A Major poker tournament set for Bluffs' Horseshoe Casino FORECAST HIGH LOW 53 33 Partly cloudy skies and warm. "-2 Page 6B $1 million-plus will be on the table for the event, which begins Jan. 27. The winner goes to poker World Series. FOR DELIVERY CALL: (515) 284-8311 (800)365-4692 A GANNETT NEWSPAPER Copyright 2006 Des Moines Register and Tribune Company Series of Poker, which will draw upwards of 10,000 players and a pot worth more than $12 million.

Card sharks willing to ante up anywhere from $340 to $1,570 in Council Bluffs can enter one of seven no-limit games, which will culminate in the main event with a buy-in of $5,150. See POKER, Page 8A BY LARRY BALLARD REGISTER STAFF WRITER Jesus might be on his way to Iowa. To play poker. Professional poker champion Chris "Jesus" Ferguson is among the world-class card players invited to Council Bluffs for the state's first-ever World Series of Poker qualifying tournament at Harrah's Horseshoe Casino. Organizers say a prize pool of more than 1 million will be on the table Jan.

27 through Feb. 7. The winner gets a ring, and a seat at a "big table" in Las Vegas for the 2007 World ''40901 1 5006 DAILY A See some of Duffy's cartoons online: DesMoinesRegister.comduffy SATURDAY 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Capital Square Nollen Plaza 16 lyuuctr www.desmoinesfarmersmarket.com A 'Or triers' Vi (trKtt knowdowntown DECEMBER FARMERS' MARKET.