Immigrants' Important Economic and Political Impact In Iowa
The Immigration Policy Center (formerly American Immigration Law Foundation) is a great organization that provides highly valuable practice advisories to immigration lawyers while also lobbying for pragmatic immigration laws and providing a vitally sane voice on the economic and cultural impact of immigration in the United States. In other words, an important part of their mission is to disseminate quality, objectively verifiable information that disputes common myths about immigration here in the U.S.
To this end the IPC has recently released the result of research and analysis which shows immigrants, Latinos, and Asians are clearly an important part of Iowa's economy, labor force, and tax base. Immigrants and their children are a growing economic and political force as workers, consumers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs. Immigrants and their children will continue to play a key role in shaping the economic and political future here in Iowa.
Highlight's from IPC's research and analysis include:
- In 2007 Iowa was home to 117,437 immigrants;
- 34.5% of immigrants in 2007 (or 40,473 people) in Iowa were naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote;
- Latinos accounted for 4.0% (or 119,522) and Asians 1.6% (or 47,809) of Iowa's total population in 2007;
- The 2008 purchasing power of Latinos totaled $2.4 billion and Asian buying power totaled $1.7 billion in Iowa in 2007;
- Unauthorized immigrant families in Iowa paid between $40 million and $62 million in state and local taxes in 2007;
- If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Iowa, the state would lose $1.4 billion in expenditures, $613.4 billion in economic output, and approximately 8,819 jobs.
As you can see, Iowa isn't the homogeneous state many assume it to be. Immigrants' economic, cultural and political impact on Iowa will only continue to grow in the coming years.
