The Democratic candidate for Iowa governor wants to welcome more H-1B visa migrants into the white-collar jobs that can be filled by young Iowans.
“[I] want to make sure that we have professionals in the state of Iowa to do what we need done for Iowans,” wealthy Democratic candidate Rob Sand said during the state’s gubernatorial TV debate on Wednesday evening.
In contrast, GOP candidate Zach Lahn has promised to stop state agencies and universities from sidelining more American professionals in favor of imported H-1B workers. “I don’t think it’s the right idea to import people from other countries to be doing these [Iowa taxpayer-funded] jobs,” Lahn told the watching audience, adding:
I think we need to take a long-term approach at looking to say, “How do we build the workforce in Iowa?” I believe a self-respecting state and a self-respecting country is a country that is going to invest in its people, the people that are here.
Sand defended his support for importing H-1B workers into Iowa jobs:
If you end that [H-1B inflow], what happens if you’ve run out of [American] applicants? Then you don’t have any. You want to prioritize Iowans? That’s a good idea, but saying that you’re not welcome otherwise, I think, is a mistake. We got a lot of work that we need to have done in Iowa.
We’re one of the slowest growing populations in America… We need to make sure that we’re not closing the door on people who want to be here.
Sand described H-1B workers as professionals. But H-1Bs — including doctors and engineers — cannot work as free-speaking, pro-client professionals because their employers have the absolute authority to force them back home and block their hope for citizenship.
Sand failed to recognize that core reality when he justified his support for more H-1Bs by citing an American citizen who chose to move from Hawaii to Iowa: “I went to school with a guy in Iowa City for law school… He didn’t move here thinking that he would stay, but he loves it here.”
Many H-1B workers leave Midwestern states once they get legal residency because they prefer to live with members of their own ethnic group. Most Indian migrants live in Texas, New Jersey, North Carolina, or California.
Sand’s reference to Iowa’s population reflects the demands of business groups and banks that demand a near-term inflow of foreign workers, customers, and renters regardless of the economic damage to American families and birthrates.
Nationwide, many state politicians allow and encourage state-funded agencies and universities to import foreign workers, even when many local Americans have the skills for the jobs.
This foreign inflow is getting more recognition amid growing understanding that the H-1B program is riddled with discrimination, featherbedding, fraud, favoritism, and kickbacks.
But the state’s establishment newspaper, the Des Moines Register, favors large-scale migration and has largely ignored the H-1B outsourcing fight.
Under federal law, universities and other nonprofits can freely import low-wage H-1Bs without any caps. Many universities use that rule to hire the adult children of Indian H-1Bs who are already on the payroll.
Lahn said:
We are a welcoming country. But we have people in our state and our country that are hurting, that are looking for work and looking for training, and we need to be investing in the citizens that are within our state and within our country, and so I think that that is the ultimate answer as we look at this, is how do we build up the skill set and the population of the people that live here to make sure, for the long term, that we have a plan to cover these jobs?
And I think that through efforts like that, through efforts like ending H-1Bs at our universities and state government, [we can] make sure Iowa kids have the first say at those jobs…
We can say that we are prioritizing the people that live here, that built this state, that want to be here for four, five, or six more generations, like many of us have. I don’t think it’s the right idea to import people.
Since 2015, the University of Iowa has asked for 2,788 foreign workers, according to government data displayed by LayoffHedge.com. Iowa State University of Science and Technology has asked for 1,385.
State agencies have also hired many foreign workers from contractors such as Infosys and Capgemini.
The state’s governor does not have the legal power to block private companies from importing foreign workers via the federal program. But he can pressure and shame them to favor Americans.
Since 2015, Deere & Co. has asked for 305 workers, TransAmerican Life Insurance Co. has asked for 211 foreign workers, and the Genesis Health System has asked for 157 foreign workers.
More than 1,300 employers have asked for H-1B workers since 2015. Many of the employers also asked to import foreign contract workers via the J-1, L-1, OPT, F-1/H4EAD programs.
Lahn says more young Iowans will stay in the state if the H-1B jobs are open to Iowans.
