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ELIZABETH BEYER: From her home in Austin, Linnea Burtch has embarked on a crusade against illegal immigration. In her living room, she keeps a briefcase full of newspaper clippings and flyers that advocate for strict enforcement measures.

LINNEA BURTCH: I think it's just that people want what's right to be right. They want the illegals out of here.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Race and immigration haven't always been priorities for Burch. The 60-year-old is a grandmother, an active member of her church. She grew up in Austin and returned to her hometown in the early 1990s. A few years later, while living in a mobile home park, she started to realize many of her neighbors were Latino.

LINNEA BURTCH: I had no idea anything about illegal or legal. So I was busy signing all these people up for our resident association and getting involved, and none of the Hispanics wanted to join-- they were really shy about joining even our resident association.

ELIZABETH BEYER: When she realized some of the mobile homes had multiple Latino families living in them, she got angry they were violating association rules.

LINNEA BURTCH: And they had one family that had-- there were 18 in a two bedroom home out there. There were people that were living in sheds outside. They had bunk beds in sheds, and I was just horrified.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Burtch moved her double wide unit out of the mobile home community and onto a residential street in Austin. She got involved with the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reform, a small but vocal anti-immigration group based in Albert Lea. Now that she's retired, she spends much of her time organizing the group's Austin chapter and advocating for strict immigration control. She wants to hold employers accountable for the role they play in attracting immigrant labor.

LINNEA BURTCH: You wouldn't even have to deport them. They would self-deport if they could not be hired by Hormel, QPP, Austin Packaging Company, anybody who hires illegals.

ELIZABETH BEYER: So it goes back to the employer?

LINNEA BURTCH: You bet. And I'll tell you what, if Hormel's were fined $1,000, $10,000 every time one of these illegals was found there, they wouldn't have them there very long.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Burtch's views are not unusual in Austin, a city of about 23,000 residents. From 1990 to 2000, the number of Latinos in Austin skyrocketed from around 250 to more than 1,600. Today, as many as a quarter of the city's residents may be Latino, primarily from Mexico and Guatemala. And police officials say the use of illegal documents is on the rise,

In Austin, the number of forgery cases, often for using illegal identification, nearly doubled from 2000 to 2009. 36-year-old Gilberto Briones moved to Southern Minnesota in 2002 with his wife Maria. He worked at Quality Pork Processors for six years and volunteered as a union steward. He became a go to person for rank and file Latino workers. But in 2008, he says the company fired him for identity theft. He was working under another name.

GILBERTO BRIONES: I was trying to help people and everything. And one day, they just called me. I thought it was just something simple that I had to help another people, but that day was for me, and I couldn't do nothing.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Officials with Hormel and QPP declined to comment for this story. Mower County Sheriff officials estimate about half the jail population is illegal. A decade ago, immigrants not legally in the country made up only 10% of the Austin jail population. When federal agents arrested Gilberto Briones last December, they also picked up three relatives. Briones paid a $10,000 bail with the help of friends.

The others were deported. An immigration judge will ultimately decide if Briones should be deported too. His next immigration court hearing is scheduled for May. In the meantime, his wife Maria doesn't know what she and her three US born kids will do if he has to leave the country.

MARIA: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

INTERPRETOR: Austin is a peaceful town, very inviting for the kids and for us. They give us work here. But now we're living in fear of what will happen if the police stops us. All we do is think about what could happen to us and to our family.

ELIZABETH BEYER: The rapid influx of immigrant workers like Briones has made illegal immigration a hot topic in Austin. Stories in the local newspapers regularly identify whether a person is in the country illegally. And pro and anti-immigration supporters occasionally come face to face at rallies. Social service agencies and advocacy groups in Austin have worked painstakingly to embrace the new ethnic and racial minorities. But for some, the process has been abrupt and uncomfortable, and only a few like Linnea Burtch speak openly about it.

ALL: --pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America--

ELIZABETH BEYER: Burtch has organized the first meeting of the year for her immigration reform coalition. About 30 people gather around folding tables in the center of an empty storefront at a mall in Austin. The guest speaker tonight is Ron Branstner. Branstner volunteers for the Minuteman Project in California. It's a private organization that monitors the flow of illegal immigrants across the US-Mexico border. Branstner comes to Minnesota a few times a year to visit his parents.

RON BRANSTNER: The illegals, they are just the symptom. They are not the issue. They're not what's underneath this whole thing.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Branstner encourages coalition members to speak up against the changes in Austin. Coalition members say the issue for them is not race, but the need to enforce laws, they say, are already in place. They question how so many immigrants can land jobs at Austin's major companies. Branstner admits the anger toward immigrants is sometimes misdirected. And he says for the most part, meatpacking workers are victims of American capitalism and corporate greed.

RON BRANSTNER: They're being used, just like you're being used. The only thing is, we look at them because they're the symptom we want to put a band-aid on.

ELIZABETH BEYER: But what Branstner sees as a symptom, others see as the city's saving grace. A decade ago, city officials created an agency designed to offer support to the city's newest residents. The Welcome Center here in the heart of Austin went up in 2000. It's a yellow brick building with a small sign, some say, so it won't attract a lot of attention.

This is the place immigrants, both legal and illegal, come to get information about work, medical services, and community events. The people who pushed for the Welcome Center support racial tolerance and cultural understanding. They say in many ways, Austin has a responsibility to help the immigrants because they've helped save the city.

However, every now and then, this building is the target of anti-immigrant picketing and rallies. Folks who work here get occasional fliers saying the Welcome Center is not welcome in Austin. Bonnie Rietz is a former mayor of Austin. Rietz believes that to some extent, age, education, and personal experience play a role in how Austin residents react to their Mexican neighbors.

BONNIE RIETZ: Change to some people is exciting, and they look forward to it, and they want it. And change to others, to some, is just like, no. We like our community the way it is. We want no changes. We don't want anyone coming in and changing our community.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Others believe class distinctions often drive anti-immigrant feelings. Some of the most palpable fear comes from those who are afraid of losing something to the newcomers, like a job. White collar professional workers in Austin seem to be the most accepting of the city's immigrant residents.

On a recent Saturday, Norm Hecimovich strolls past polished vintage cars at the annual VFW Car Show. The crowd is mostly middle aged and white. Before he retired, Hecimovich was a school principal here in town. He says a deep rooted nostalgia for pre-strike Austin has made it difficult for adult immigrants to integrate, despite the efforts of many.

NORM HECIMOVICH: And it's partially us and it's partially them because many times, they want to stay by themselves. And more comfortable maybe.

ELIZABETH BEYER: Hecimovich says there is an anti-immigration presence in the community. Many of those who are outspoken about immigration are former Hormel workers who long for the days before the strike.

NORM HECIMOVICH: People will blame the minority groups, but they're the only ones left. Because we educated people can move. I wouldn't have any trouble finding employment. And see, we educated people can do that. Not everybody can.

ELIZABETH BEYER: If there's one place the future of Austin is clear, it's here at the Woodson Kindergarten Center. Mayor Tom Stein brought me here this spring when nearly 375 students were in class. He says the school is a snapshot of the future and a reminder that Austin will probably never look the way it did before the Hormel strike.

TOM STEIN: People get so comfortable. I think people, they look back and they say, the '70s. God, the '70s were so great. Now, what's different from the '70s? And they see all the people of different colors and stuff and they go, jeez, that's different. If that wasn't here, maybe we wouldn't have these issues.

ELIZABETH BEYER: As we walk, a cluster of kids heads towards the playground for recess. And in this quintessential backdrop of rural Minnesota, it's stunning to see that nearly half the students are minority. This year's kindergarten class was 47% immigrant.

TOM STEIN: I know without a doubt that if you look 10, 15, 20 years down the road, Austin is going to have a large immigrant population, a large Hispanic population because they won't be immigrants and they'll be citizens and they'll be living here. And at that point, what are you going to look back on?

ELIZABETH BEYER: Stein says change has come to Austin very fast, and that's been hard for this small town. The city is at a crossroads, and residents will have to decide whether to leave a legacy of hatred or acceptance or perhaps an uneasy middle ground. In the end, Tom Stein believes people simply need more time to get to know each other. Elizabeth Beyer, Minnesota Public Radio News, Austin.