Rural America is not “full” ... we need immigrants.
If President Trump closes our borders because of a misguided belief that our nation is full, it will limit our economy and devastate my beloved heartland
Those hiring were unable to find even one U.S. citizen to apply for the job.
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — When you drive around Northwest Iowa, it won’t take long for you to find a “For Hire” sign. My state has a 2.4% unemployment rate. One of the biggest limits to growth in our Iowa economy is simply that we don’t have enough workers. So when President Donald Trump told prospective immigrants the other day that “our country is full,” I don’t see that.
I look at this statement through my Midwestern lens, specifically Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. The district is my home and it’s where, in the 2018 election cycle, I drove 35,000 miles in my personal vehicle and 24,000 miles in my campaign RV, “Sioux City Sue,” in my bid for Congress.
This is a district represented by one of
the most anti-immigrant members of Congress, Steve King. It’s also home to Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen, who often talks about the importance of immigrants to his hometown of Storm Lake. He even wrote a book about it. If you visit the area and talk to people, you’ll probably find that more of them share Cullen’s beliefs on the matter than King’s.
Of the 39 counties that make up the district, only three are growing. Story County is doing well because Ames, along with being the home of Iowa State University, is part of the booming corridor with Des Moines. Dickinson County is growing because the Iowa Great Lakes region is a popular destination, often called “the Hamptons of Iowa.” Sioux County is growing because it has jobs that keep people’s children around and brings in immigrants to help build its economy.
Then, you have Pocahontas County. It has been declining in population so fast that at this rate, the county will be depopulated by 2050. There is one high school in the entire county. Residents worried about keeping the one ambulance the county has.
Iowa’s economy relies on the estimated 96,000 immigrant workers we have in our agriculture, construction and manufacturing industries. It’s no secret that our district and our state are shrinking in population. In 1968, Iowa had seven congressional districts. Now, we have four.
In the past two years, I have had a front row seat of seeing the disconnect between Washington and day-to-day life in Iowa. I saw it at the Heartland Forum, where 500 Midwesterners were eager to hear visions from Democratic presidential hopefuls on how to improve rural Americans’ lives. A lot of the media and interest-group “out-of-towners” were focused on specific issues, such as esoteric banking regulations, that tend not to be part of the conversations many of us have.
When I first launched my campaign, a successful campaign consultant out of Washington told me to stay away from immigration because it’s not a winning issue in Iowa. However, during my first 39-county tour, outside of health care, immigration and finding a solution to having a workforce was at the top of the list of concerns of hundreds of businesses I spoke with.
In Greene County in 2017, I was told the grain elevator needed about 40 seasonal workers to help with the fall harvest. Those hiring were unable to find even one U.S. citizen to apply for the job. When I used that on the campaign trail, I saw a lot of head nodding, and I heard similar stories in small towns across the district.
In Sioux City and in Eagle Grove, two new pork plants have opened. Executives were clear that there wasn’t enough labor in the area to support the plants and that they would need to bring in an immigrant workforce. It took more than a year before the one in Sioux City was able to start a second shift.
The reality is that there is a lack of vision in Washington to help revive rural areas suffering from depopulation.
Iowa is not full. We’re a place to grow. Iowa’s state slogan is “Fields of Opportunity.” We need to revitalize our rural communities. To do so, we need a labor force, most likely dependent on immigration. If President Trump gets his way and closes our borders because of this misguided belief that our nation is full, it will limit our economy and devastate my beloved heartland.