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Iowa businesses brace for impact from changing immigration policies, enforcement
Immigrant workers make up roughly 7.4 percent of the state’s workforce. Now, some might be at risk.
Oct. 26, 2025 5:30 am
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Since coming to Iowa City three years ago, Ruby Caceras has seen the crucial role that immigrants play in keeping the local economy running.
Caceras, originally from Venezuela, has worked several jobs since coming to the U.S. with her husband and child to seek asylum from the widespread violence and political strife of her home country.
With the help of local service providers, she and her husband were able to obtain work permits so they could find legal employment and support themselves while waiting for their asylum case to be heard.
The pair began to notice over time, however, that no matter where they worked — from restaurants to factories or delivery services — they were never without a cohort of co-workers with their own immigration stories.
“Immigrants are essential workers in this country,” Caceras said. “Immigrants are (working) in hotels and in restaurants. In manufacturing and food factories, there are immigrants. I know because I’ve worked there. I’ve seen them.”
Caceras’ experience speaks to the critical role immigrants play in Iowa’s workforce and that of the country at large already broadly understood by economists and industry leaders.
Common Sense Institute Iowa, a nonpartisan research organization and pro-business, Iowa-based think tank, in February put numbers to that impact through the release of its “Demographics are Destiny” study on the influences of foreign migration to Iowa’s demographic and economic landscape.
Upon reviewing U.S. Bureau statistics, the organization found that Iowa is increasingly dependent on foreign migration for its demographic growth. Since 2021, Iowa’s population has grown by 1.34 percent, more than half of which the report states can be attributed to foreign immigration.
And if foreign immigration into Iowa halted for the next four years, the state would lose 11,000 labor force participants and $300 million in GDP.
Iowa Business Council President Joe Murphy said business leaders are keenly aware of that trend, which has contributed to the council’s history of pushing for immigration reform to bolster legal pathways for those looking to work and live in the U.S.
“We view legal immigration into this country, and then into this state, as a really great economic development tool,” Murphy said. “We have pointed out time and time again that we need more people in the state for businesses to thrive, … and obviously immigration is a key component of that.”
But over the last year, many pathways to legal citizenship have shifted, if not closed completely, and federal enforcement activities have spiked — threatening the same population of immigrants who are helping Iowa grow.
Visas, work permits called into question
There are several different ways immigrants can seek legal permission to work in the U.S. depending on their circumstances, skills and educational background. Since President Donald Trump began his second term in January, however, several previously established pathways have been eliminated or altered.
In March, for example, the Department of Homeland Security announced its intent to revoke legal protections for roughly 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela living in the U.S. under humanitarian parole.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin later said in a written statement that the decision was prompted after “abuse” of the program from the Biden administration allowed people into the country without proper vetting.
“Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,” she wrote.
The action was challenged in court, although ultimately allowed 7-2 by the U.S. Supreme Court in May. At that time, DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the U.S. “must depart” before their parole termination date.
The result was the immediate or impending termination of legal status for over half a million people living in the U.S., many of whom had legally sought and obtained employment that was contingent upon that same status.
One key example was at an Ottumwa JBS meatpacking plant where, according to United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1846, more than 200 workers this July were notified that their work visas had been revoked.
While that was a particularly stark example, Presentation Lantern Center Executive Director Megan Ruiz said it wasn’t the only way Iowa workers and employers were affected by the program’s termination.
The Presentation Lantern Center is a Dubuque-based nonprofit that provides educational services and programming for immigrants and refugees in the tristate area.
Ruiz knows several people personally who lost jobs after their humanitarian parole was terminated. Many of those people were working in Dubuque’s manufacturing industry, where workforce shortages are already particularly pronounced.
“We had anywhere between one and seven people affected (each) at a ton of different factories” in the area, Ruiz said. “I don’t know if (those companies) are talking about it outwardly, but we know it happened.”
Another program undergoing alterations is the H-1B visa program, which allows American employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. The goal of the program is to allow companies to tap into the global talent market to fill skills gaps in the U.S. workforce.
In fiscal year 2025, federal data shows 223 Iowa employers petitioned to successfully hire or retain a total of 990 workers with H-1B visas. Top employers using the program in Iowa include the University of Iowa, Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids, Iowa State University and Kanap Systems in West Des Moines.
On Sept. 19, Trump issued an executive order instituting a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas in an effort to push American companies to prioritize hiring U.S. workers rather than relying on oversea labor.
Under guidance published by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the fee will apply only when companies hire new applicants who are living outside the country. It will not apply when renewing a previously accepted H-1B visa or when an applicant is already living in the U.S. under a different visa type.
The move was met with criticism from some in the business community, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this month filed a lawsuit against the fee’s implementation over concerns of outsized impacts to small- and mid-sized businesses looking to access global talent.
Murphy, with the Iowa Business Council, said that the organization still is working to understand potential implications from the fee’s implementation but that overall the organization has traditionally been in favor of easing barriers to the H-1B visa process — not adding them.
“Putting into place some sort of barrier for entry for H-1B visa holders into the future could disrupt the meaningful flow of talent into our companies and communities,” said Murphy, who noted the program has proved fruitful in the past.
“Looking at ways there might be concerns in the (immigration system) is obviously appropriate,” he added. “We just have to weigh those against the acute needs of a state like Iowa to make sure … we’re not also tying our hands behind our back when we’re trying to bring in talented people.”
Those are two specific program changes among many since Trump assumed office, Ruiz noted, and of many more expected moving forward.
She said the rate and breadth of those changes has contributed to a mix of confusion, concern and fear within the immigrant community, even in instances where people are not part of directly affected programs.
“The number of legal pathways (to legal residency) were already so narrow, … that to see those doors slam shut is hard,” Ruiz said.
Industry, business groups respond
The American Immigration Council estimates that immigrants represent around 5.8 percent of Iowa’s overall population and about 7.4 percent of the state’s workforce. Some fields rely more heavily on immigrant workers, however, such as manufacturing, construction, education and agriculture.
In July, the American Business Immigration Coalition wrote an open letter to President Trump to outline support for the administration’s recent border security and enforcement actions while also advocating for a more robust work visa program.
The letter, signed by multiple Iowa industry groups, highlighted the need for immigrant workers to help offset declining birthrates and a shrinking domestic labor pool — particularly in areas such as agriculture, hospitality and construction.
Signatories expressed support for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, for example, which proponents hope to use to reform the H-2A visa program and establish a strong, legal immigration workforce for agricultural producers.
“We invite anyone who does not yet share your vision for securing America’s workforce to spend a day with us,” the letter reads. “They can see the hard work and dedication it takes to milk a cow before sunrise, train a horse with patience and skill, open a restaurant at the crack of dawn or close it late at night or care for an elderly American living with severe dementia.”
Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, was one of the Iowa professionals to sign the letter. She was joined by Iowa Hotel and Lodging Association Director Faith Dorn, the Associated General Contractors of Iowa and the Master Builders of Iowa.
In an interview with The Gazette, Dunker said the association has always recognized the importance of immigrant labor to the restaurant industry and supports targeted immigration reform to open or ease more legal pathways to fill those roles.
In particular, she highlighted the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act, which was reintroduced in Congress last month by a bipartisan group of legislators. The bill would provide three-year visas to workers in staff-strapped industries with the potential for two additional three-year renewals.
The program would only be available in places where unemployment is below 8 percent and for positions that employers have demonstrated have gone unfilled for three consecutive months or that have been open for 60 days within a 90-day period.
As proposed, workers would have to pass a criminal-background check to be eligible and would not be permitted to bring any family members into the U.S. as part of the program.
Dunker supports the proposal, but also acknowledged that attempts to push for similar programs in the past have been met with reticence or ambivalence from the elected officials who could make it happen.
“I think we (at the Iowa Restaurant Association) are part of the collective frustration because there’s always a lot of talk. There’s a lot of ideas that are getting introduced, but there’s never reform that is meaningful,” Dunker said.
“I think our industry has realized that you have to separate comprehensive immigration reform from work visas to try to make any headway at all,” she added, noting her hope that the reintroduction of the essential workers act will reinvigorate conversations on the topic.
Some steps available to prepare for changing policies, enforcement
In the meantime, businesses are being urged to take action now to accommodate evolving immigration policies while also supporting immigrant workers.
The Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance this month put out a “tool kit” to its more than 1,000 member businesses with information on what employers need to know about ongoing changes to immigration policy and enforcement.
While not legal advice, the kit includes basic information on how businesses can prepare for increased immigration enforcement, the basics of I-9 compliance and how to prepare for potential raids on businesses from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Barbra Solberg, public policy strategist for the EA, said the tool kit was prepared and released “proactively” given increased enforcement activities at workplaces nationwide — like a June raid on an Omaha food packaging plant where ICE detained nearly 80 people.
“With all of the recent (ICE) raids that we’ve heard about in various places, we are just trying to be proactive in case our businesses have questions about what to do or how to prepare” if the same thing were to happen locally, she said.
In the tool kit, businesses are encouraged to make companywide plans for if ICE were to visit, make sure all employees understand that plan and appoint a “lead person” on each shift to handle primary communications with the agency.
Employers might also consider facilitating a “Know Your Rights” training for workers to educate them on their legal rights and how to exercise them during interactions with immigration officials.
Member businesses were also invited to join the organization’s Immigration Advocacy Network to inform the group’s future lobbying and policy efforts around the topic.
Escucha Mi Voz, an Iowa City-based immigrants rights group, last week made some of its own recommendations to several local government entities at a joint meeting of Johnson County-area officials.
There, Caceras represented the group and encouraged officials to establish worker safety zones at government buildings in case of ICE raids, host Know Your Rights trainings for municipal employees and require a judicial warrant prior to allowing ICE officials on the premises.
The organization also called on leaders to post public notices at entrances to ensure due process and fund workplace safety training, supportive housing programs and legal aid for immigrant workers.
“These steps all keep due process, human dignity and communities safe,” Caceras said. “By taking them together, our local government can model what it means to protect the essential workers that sustain our communities.”
Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com
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