Use your common sense: Who wants to shovel dung?
Big business might be waking up to who butters its bread.
A think tank populated by bankers, builders and chambers of commerce called “Common Sense Institute Iowa” says that our economy depends on international immigration.
Ya think?
This is not exactly news to anyone who has driven past a packinghouse, a poultry barn or a dairy. Tyson flies flags from around the world. The people of Common Sense note that our birth rate is low, our brain drain of young, college-educated people is tragically high, and our population is aging. The report is called “Demographics Are Destiny.”
It’s there in all caps:
“A DECLINE IN IMMIGRATION WOULD HURT IOWA’S ECONOMY.”
It could cost the state 35,000 people and $400 million per year. Or so.
That is the bottom line presented by authors Andrzej Wieciorkowski, who used to work for the conservative Heritage Foundation, and Ben Murrey, who used to work for Ted Cruz. Not snowflakes.
The chairman of the Common Sense Iowa board is Joe Murphy of the Iowa Business Council. Adam Gregg of the Iowa Bankers Association, and recently lieutenant governor for Gov. Kim Reynolds, is on the board. They say they want to come together around the facts.
Their timing is interesting in releasing this report as the Trump Administration promises to deport immigrants even if they have legal papers. Gov. Reynolds has ordered local law enforcement to assist federal agents in rounding up immigrants, even though courts say it is illegal.
Common Sense claims to be nonpartisan. These folks will vote for Reynolds nine times out of 10. Murphy is not looking to primary Reynolds. Since Iowa is a one-party state, you can be non-partisan and support Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is nominally anti-immigrant by lending his unqualified support and that of the Judiciary Committee for the Trump Administration, which has made mass deportation a civic good.
What gives?
Business is business. Politics can only take you so far. You might get elected trashing Mexicans, patrolling the border as Reynolds did with state troopers in tow, and threatening the sheriff in Decorah. Yet, we have work to do. Eggs to break. Animals to husband. Why risk bird flu when you can send a Spanish-speaker in there who never will file a workers comp claim?
A little Common Sense, if you please:
“In just two years, the nominal net growth in international migrants into the state has doubled to nearly 20,000. Most working age immigrants participate in Iowa’s labor force. In 2023, 73.1% of foreign-born working-age adults in Iowa participated in the labor force compared to 65.6% of Iowa natives. In other words, international migrants have made substantial contribution to Iowa’s economy and economic growth.“
Iowa’s elected officials wouldn’t mind so much if you locked them up in Guantanamo Bay, so long as they are not in a rural county seat aging gracefully toward six feet under. God forbid that you would vote for a union.
Legislators will repeat that legal immigrants are okay, except it is nearly impossible to be a legal immigrant because of our mindlessly complex, forboding system. Pedro is not getting in with the border sealed tight. We still need undocumented people to do our dirty work. Those are the conflicting facts.
The leaders wink. Food processing must go on. Get real.
Iowa doesn’t have the sort of jobs that would keep a Hawkeye with a ton of student debt home. Hence the huge drain of our young folks to Chicago, the Twin Cities and Kansas City. What we do have is a world-leading load of manure that needs scooped. English is not required. We must get it scooped. It keeps piling up without willing hands. It will attract flies.
Reynolds is running for re-election in 2026. More of the same: Out of one side of your mouth, denigrate poor working people. Out of the other, whisper that we do not intend to shut down egg processing or stanch the flow of milk. Business is business, after all. It has a moral stench that smells like … money.
Wise up. Use your Common Sense.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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You are so right.
Republican hypocrisy.
We need immigrants for many reasons, some of them selfish and some of them altruistic.
Democrats need to emphasize the selfish, financial need for immigrants. That’s what voters will respond to.
Iowans should push both parties to champion legal immigration in agricultural states by emphasizing its economic necessity. Dem's should raise the issue in campaigns. We know farm labor shortages directly threaten food production and rural economies. Immigrants revitalize aging communities, start businesses, and maintain essential services. Last year, I wrote a letter to the editor: "Without immigration reform, rural Iowa loses workers, families, and eventually schools and hospitals." I tried to connect immigration directly to agricultural productivity and community survival.