Immigration powers Iowa’s growth

Iowa’s growth depends on immigrants. The numbers don’t lie.

New Census data shows Iowa gained 23,074 people in 2024. And 19,439 of those newcomers migrated to Iowa from outside the United States.

Another report last fall by Immigration Research Institute and the Economic Policy Institute put Iowa’s total immigrant population at 200,000. One-in-four doctors in Iowa are immigrants, as well as one-in-five maids and housekeepers and more than half of butchers and meat processors.

And yet, during the presidential campaign, Republicans depicted immigrants as criminals invading Americans. Much of the focus was on immigrants who entered the country illegally, but anti-immigration vitriol was also aimed at legal immigration.

Seldom mentioned by those candidates are immigrants working on farms and other agricultural operations around the state. They’re cutting and packing meat, jobs that cost lives during the pandemic. In a state that needs improved access to health care, immigrants working in our hospitals and with other health care providers are filling needed slots.

But our politics has built a wall around these facts, hoping voters choose fear.

Voters chose President-elect Donald Trump, who stoked immigration fears and promised “mass deportations” when he takes office. How he’ll remove millions of working immigrants has yet to be revealed. The economy likely will suffer.

It’s also likely immigrants in Iowa are among those fearfully watching developments. They’re people who moved here to work, built lives and opened businesses in small communities. Their kids attend schools, boosting some small districts.

It’s admiration, not anger, that we should be feeling toward our immigrant neighbors, We should help them to feel welcome at this moment. Organizations that help newcomers adapt to a new life here need our support.

Immigrants make up a growing segment of Iowans. In an aging state with a shortage of workers in many sectors, immigrants are needed in Iowa. The numbers don’t lie.