Iowa

Summary Demographic State Data (and Source)
Population (2009 CB est.):	3,007,856
Population (2000 Census):	2,926,324
Foreign-Born Population (2009 CB est.):	116,161
Foreign-Born Population (2000 Census):	91,085
Share Foreign-Born (2009):	3.9%
Share Foreign-Born (2000):	3.1%
Naturalized U.S. Citizens (2009 CB est.):	29,951
Share Naturalized (2009):	32.9%
Legal Immigrant Admission (DHS 2000-2009):	40,465
Refugee Admission (HHS 2000-2009):	6,359
Illegal Alien Population (2010 FAIR est.)	65,000
Costs of Illegal Aliens (2010 FAIR)	$349,700,000
Projected 2050 Population (2006 FAIR)	3,514,000

Iowa : Extended Immigration Data

STATE POPULATION

Based on the American Community Survey (ACS), the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2009 Iowa’s population had increased to 3,007,856 residents, i.e., an annual average increase of about 8,765 residents since 2000. That was an annual rate of increase of about 0.3 percent. The comparable national annual rate of increase was 1.0 percent.

The 2000 Census found 2,926,324 persons resident in Iowa. This was an increase of 149,569 persons above the 1990 Census. The annual rate of increase (0.5%) was below the national rate of increase (1.2%).

The 2000 population was about 25,000 more persons than the Census Bureau had expected to find in the state in 2000 when it issued its state population projections in 1996. The significance of this is that the Census Bureau concluded that much of the shortfall in their population estimates during the 1990s was due to an underestimation of the illegal alien population.

Between 1980 and 1990 Iowa's overall population declined by 4.7 percent (from 2,913,808 to 2,776,755). That was an annual rate of change of -0.5 percent. The national rate of change was 1.0 percent.

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

Based on the ACS, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the foreign-born population of Iowa was 116,161 persons in 2009. This meant a foreign-born population share of 3.9 percent. The amount of change since the 2000 Census indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 2,695 people, which is nearly one-third (30.8%) of the state’s annual average population increase. Since 2000, the foreign-born population has increased by 27.5 percent compared to a 2.0 percent increase in the native-born population. This was an annual rate of increase of 2.7 percent compared with the national annual rate of 2.4 percent.

NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (NIM)

Based on the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2009 the state’s population increased by about 36,330 residents from net international migration (more foreign-born arriving than leaving). That was an annual average increase of about 3,905 residents, i.e., more than two-fifths (44.6%) of the total increase (not including the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States).

Iowa Sources of Population Change 2000-09

FOREIGN-BORN CHANGE

The amount of change since the 2000 Census found in the 2009 ACS indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 2,695 people, which is nearly one-third (30.8%) of the state’s annual average population increase. [Note that the CPS indicates a higher rate of foreign-born growth.] Since 2000, the foreign-born population had increased by 27.5 percent compared to a 2.0 percent increase in the native-born population. The annual rate of increase from 2000-2009 was 2.7 percent compared to a national rate of 2.4 percent.

Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants in this country. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 7.8 percent share of the state’s current births is large enough to account for about 3,005 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account for nearly 5,700 persons added to the state’s population annually, i.e., nearly two-thirds (65%) of the state’s overall population increase.

The 2000 Census found that more than half (57.5%) of Iowa's foreign-born population had arrived in the state since 1990. This was higher than the national average (43.7%). Over a third (37%) of the state's foreign-born population in 1990 had arrived since 1980. The 2009 ACS data estimate that more than one-third (19.6%) of the state’s foreign-born population has arrived since 2000. That is much lower than the 31.6 percent share of new arrivals nationally.

During the 1990s the state’s foreign-born population increased by about 47,770 from 43,316. That was an increase of 110.3 percent compared to a 3.7 percent increase in the native-born population. The increase accounted for 31.9 percent of the state’s total population increase. On an annual basis, the foreign-born population increased by 7.7 percent compared to a national rate of 4.6 percent.

FOREIGN-BORN CHARACTERISTICS

An indicator of the change in Iowa's immigrant population may be seen in data on the share of the population over five years of age that speaks a language other than English at home. Between 1990 and 2000, the share of non-English speakers increased from 5.8 percent to 6.5 percent. More than two-fifths (42.6%) of those persons in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well. In the 2009 ACS, the share had increased to 16.4 percent and of those 40.7 percent spoke English less than very well. Spanish speakers were 56.1 percent of those who spoke other than English at home, and 60.3 percent of those who spoke English less than very well.

Speakers of Foreign Languages (at home in Iowa in the 2000 Census)
Spanish	79,490
German	17,160
French	7,425
Vietnamese	6,180
Serbocroatian	5,745
Chinese	4,295
Laotian	3,940
Korean	2,495
Russian	2,235
Arabic	2,055
(Source: Census Bureau report: Language Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over, April 2004)

The chart above shows the foreign-born population increasing by 27.5 percent since 2000 and the share of that population from Latin America and the Caribbean increasing by 48.8 percent. That region’s share of the state’s immigrant population grew from 36 percent to 42 percent in 2009.

NATURALIZATION

Data from the 2009 ACS indicate that 29,951 residents, or 32.9 percent, of the foreign-born population in Iowa were U.S. citizens, compared to 41,690 residents, or 35.9 percent, in 2000.

Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population were U.S. citizens in 2000, and 43.7 percent in 2009.

REFUGEES

Iowa received 6,359 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'00-'09).

LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY STUDENTS

In Iowa overall enrollment in 2008 (485,114) was 2.5 percent below enrollment in 1999. LEP enrollment was 95 percent higher than a decade earlier. The share of LEP enrollment rose from 2.0 percent to 4.1 percent.

FOREIGN STUDENTS

The 2009/2010 annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) lists the number of foreign students attending post-secondary school in Iowa as 7,673. Five schools in Iowa are listed as having a major concentration of these students:

Iowa State U.-Ames – 3,302.
U. Iowa-Iowa City – 2,589
Maharishi U. – 964
U. No Iowa – 453
Drake U. – 365

Those schools represented nearly four-fifths (79.5%) of the total foreign students in the state.

For information on foreign student issues see: Foreign Students in the United States

ILLEGAL ALIENS

FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the state’s illegal alien population in 2010 was 65,000 persons. This is part of an overall estimate of the U.S. illegal alien population of about 12 million persons.

INS/DHS Estimate - The INS (now dissolved into the Dept. of Homeland Security) estimated in February 2003 that the resident illegal population in Iowa was 24,000 as of January 2000. This number was more than 18,000 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate.

Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimated the illegal alien population of the state was 65,000 as of 2010.

COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

Iowa Fiscal Costs In 2009
Due to Illegal Aliens ($M)		(Pct.)
K-12 educ.	$147.6	42.2%
LEP educ.	$29.7	8.5%
Medicaid	$28.0	8.0%
SCHIP	$8.6	2.5%
Justice	$23.3	6.7%
Welfare+	$40.3	11.5%
General	$72.2	20.6%
Total	$349.7
Tax Receipts	$17.9
Net Cost	$331.8

Source: “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers,” FAIR 2010.

POPULATION PROJECTION

We projected Iowa’s population in 2050 likely would be between 3.44 million and 3.51 million depending on what happens with immigration policy. See "Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050: Four Immigration Scenarios,” FAIR 2006.

Iowa : Immigrant Admissions

Iowa Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year
2000	3,052
2001	5,029
2002	5,591
2003	3,425
2004	3,984
2005	4,536
2006	4,086
2007	3,103
2008	3,696
2009	3,963
Total	40,465

Recent immigrant admissions are at 382 percent of admissions just after adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965-'69 period, annual admissions averaged about 1,015 immigrants. During the most recent five years, admissions averaged about 3,877 persons.

The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative immigrant admissions data since 1965. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 777 in FY'66 to 5,591 in FY’02. The cumulative total of admissions to Iowa between fiscal years 1965 and 2009 was about 100,090 immigrants.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'96 - FY'05

The table below furnishes INS data on the immigrants who have been admitted for residence in Iowa since 1996 by nationality.

The INS data are for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1996. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.

The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Louisiana during this period.

The Department of Homeland Security website is has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. That resource has data for all source countries. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).

A dash (-) indicates that the data for that year was not published for that country in the Immigration Statistical Yearbook. * China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Soviet Union includes Russia and former parts of the USSR. Yugoslavia includes Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro-Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The 31 nationalities above represent more than four-fifths (82.4%) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in Iowa during this ten-year period. Immigrants from Mexico, Yugoslavia and Vietnam accounted for nearly half (48.6%) of all immigrant admissions since 1996.

Iowa : Poll Data

Selzer & Co. of Des Moines Poll of adults in Iowa
October 7, 2010

66% of Iowans favor an illegal-immigration law for their state like the one recently passed in Arizona.

Rasmussen Poll: Arizona Law SB 1070
July 2010

Suppose the new Arizona immigration law was being considered for your state. Would you favor or oppose passage of that law in your state?

A Des Moines Register poll of 801 adults surveyed in February 2008 (published September 10, 2008) found that:

55 percent of Iowans say state government can deal more effectively with illegal immigration than the federal government can.
85 percent of Iowans favor penalizing executives whose companies knowingly hire illegal immigrants. That idea got more support than any other possible legislative priority about which respondents were asked.
69 percent say they back the notion of hiring more troopers to enforce federal immigration laws in Iowa [in the 287(g) program].
Almost two-thirds of Iowans say better enforcement of immigration laws in Iowa is very important for lawmakers to address this year.

A Rasmussen Report poll conducted 825 Likely Republican Caucus Participants in Iowa on November 12, 2007 found:

91% oppose granting drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens.
86% say that when police officers pull someone over for a traffic violation, they should routinely check to see if that person is in the country legally.
76% believe that if an illegal immigrant is discovered in this manner, they should be deported.

.A New York/ CBS News Poll taken from November 2-11, 2007 of 1,273 attendants of Iowa Democratic and Republican Caucuses found:

86% of Republicans believe immigration is a serious problem (47% “very serious” and 39% “somewhat serious”), compared to 59% of Democrats (25% “very serious” and 34% “somewhat serious”).
44% (a plurality) of Republicans believe illegal immigrants should be required to leave jobs and US, compared with 51% of Democrats who believe illegal aliens should be allowed to say and apply for citizenship.
Among Republicans, immigration ranks first in “the one issue you would like candidates to discuss during the election.” Among Democrats, health care ranked first.

Des Moines Register, Sept, 2001

91% of Iowans say they are willing to accept tighter restrictions on immigration.

Iowa : Immigration Impact

ENVIRONMENTAL AND QUALITY OF LIFE PROFEIL

Wages and Working Conditions: Iowa meatpacking and processing plants that subsist on immigrant labor have created abusive workplaces and depressed wages.¹Meatpacking had the highest injury and illness rate of any industry in America during the 1980s — well ahead of poultry processing and more than three times great than the overall manufacturing average.

Disappearing open space: Through population growth and consequent development, Iowa is losing its rural character and open farmland; according to the Iowa Agricultural Statistical Survey, Iowa farms are disappearing at a rate of about 1,000 a year.² The amount of developed land in Iowa increased by 258,200 acres from 1982 to 2007, growing at a pace of 12,670 acres per year over the last ten years of that period.³

Iowa has already lost 72 percent of its original forest coverage,and due to loss of habitat, over 50 animal and 60 plant species are endangered in the state.⁴ Of Iowa's original prairie land, which many endangered species need to survive, 90 percent is gone, and the largest piece that remains is only 240 acres.⁵Other habitats for endangered species are suffering a similar fate: 95 percent of Iowa's original wetlands and gone, along with 99 percent of its prairie marshes.⁶

A study of urban sprawl between 1970 and 1990 that calculated the impact of population increase and per capita land use found that 50.6 square miles of additional land were consumed by urban sprawl in the Des Moinesmetropolitan area, and 36.2 percent of that sprawl was attributable to population increase. In the Omaha, Nebraska area, which crosses into Iowa, sprawl consumed an additional 41.8 square miles and population increase accounted for 41.6 percent of the increase.⁷

Traffic: Iowa’s highways experienced a 32 percent increase in vehicle traffic between 1990 and 2008. In 2010, 38 percent of the state’s major urban highways were considered congested by The Road Information Project (TRIP).⁸ As population growth put more traffic on the roads, the average commute for Iowa residents increased 14 percent during the 1990s, from 16.2 minutes to 18.5 minutes in 2000.⁹

About 7 percent of Iowa commuters had a commute of 45 minutes or longer in 2008.¹⁰ In the Omaha urban area, which includes part of Nebraska and Iowa, the typical commuter sat in 26 hours of congested-related traffic in 2007, resulting in total time and fuel losses valued at $184 million.

In Des Moines, growing concern over traffic congestion has forced local government and business to form a Traffic Management Association, whose goal is to reduce the rush hour jams that are hampering the city's economy.¹¹

Sprawl: Concern is rising in Iowa about multiplying costs of urban sprawl — loss of farmland and natural areas, urban-center deterioration, tax-base erosion, duplication of infrastructure, and higher taxes for construction and upkeep. In 2000, an Iowa State University poll, found that more than 70 percent of respondents see conversion of farmland and natural areas as a serious problem.¹²Some of Iowa's larger cities have doubled in physical size since 1975.

Increased residential development due to population growth and sprawl threatens the state's fiscal solvency. Altoona, Wauke, and Indianola found that they pay $1.12 to service residential developments for every dollar those developments generate in taxes.¹³

Crowded housing: An estimated 16,395 of Iowa’s housing units were classified as crowded in 2008, defined as units with more than one occupant per room. This amounted to 1.4 percent of the state’s housing units. In addition, 3,525 units were severely crowded, with at least 1.5 occupants per room.¹⁴ Following the national trend, crowded housing rates were driven upward by immigration. 26 percent of children in immigrant families live in crowded housing, compared to just 5 percent of children with native-born parents.¹⁵

Iowa's housing shortage is magnified in its small towns, which are experiencing influxes of immigrants seeking work at local agricultural processing plants; in such towns, immigrants living eight or ten to an apartment is not uncommon. The GAO has confirmed that in communities with meatpacking plants, immigrant workers frequently double up in order to afford housing.¹⁶

Affordable housing: As population increases, the affordable housing supply often drops. According to the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs, large immigrant families have led to a lack of affordable housing in destination communities like Marshalltown.¹⁷ In Dubuque, the need for affordable housing is so pressing that the city council is giving financial off-sets to developers willing to create some.¹⁸ Iowa’s housing wage (the amount a full-time worker must earn per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent) is $11.88, but the national minimum wage is $7.25. In 2008, a minimum wage earner would have had to work 66 hour weeks in order to afford a typical 2-bedroom apartment¹⁹

A GAO report found that the immigration of workers for meatpacking plants affected the affordability of housing in their communities. For example, in some communities, average rent rose 30 percent for an apartment and 29 percent for a two-bedroom trailer between 1990 and 1997.²⁰

Poverty: Iowa’s immigrants are more likely to be poor than their native-born counterparts. In 2007, 15.7 percent of foreign-born households were below the poverty line, compared to 10.8 percent of native households. An additional 12.7 percent of the foreign-born and 7.6 percent of native households were not in poverty but had incomes less than 1.5 times the poverty level.²¹ 22.7 percent of children in immigrant families were poor in 2006, compared to 13.4 percent of native children.²²

Wages in Iowa are now among the lowest in the nation.²³ Because of the availability of cheap labor through mass immigration, the Iowa meatpacking industry, formerly a middle-class employer, slashed wages and is now the most dangerous form of employment in the state, with a turnover rate of 80 percent a year at some plants.²⁴

Health Care: The poverty of many immigrant patients weighs heavily on Iowa hospitals. At Buena Vista county hospital, which began to pay for translators on its staff in 1997, uncompensated health care constitutes 25 percent of the total services. Buena Vista County social services are provided to "...diverse ethnic population, making communication difficult and time-consuming."²⁵ The illegal immigrant population is likely to account for a significant share of uncompensated care because it is ineligible for Medicare or Medicaid coverage. At Buena Vista's Storm Lake, workers at the IBP meatpacking plant don't get health insurance until they've worked at the plant for six months; as a result, the county's medical services are under "tremendous pressure," according to City Supervisor Jim Gustafson. Buena Vista had a 63 percent increase in Medicaid claims between 1990 and 1996.²⁶

Education: The number of Limited English Proficient students in Iowa, a side effect of immigration and an indicator of lack of assimilation, rose 135 percent between 1994 and 2002, and over fifteen percent in 2005-2006 alone.²⁷

In immigrant-heavy Dubuque, many of the elementary schools are housing 10 to 30 percent more students than they are designed for.²⁸In Waukee, population increase is forcing the construction of a new elementary school and middle school.²⁹

In Waterloo, the elementary school requires two full-time translators.³⁰ In Marshalltown, the children of immigrants brought by meatpacking plants account for 25 percent of the student body.³¹

Water: By 2050 the state's population is expected to rise from 3.0 million in 2006 to over 3.5 million.³² Iowa has a daily, per-capita water demand of 130.9 gallons, meaning that if current use trends held, the state’s water demand would increase by over 65 million gallons.³³

Solid Waste: Iowa generates 1.16 tons of solid waste per capita each year.³⁴

ILLEGAL RESIDENTS

Iowa's meatpacking industry is dependent on foreign workers, many of whom are illegal aliens; without them it would have to raise wages and improve working conditions.³⁵Meatpackers like IBP do direct recruiting in Mexico with radio ads, paying a private bus company to transport workersto its plants.³⁶

In 1998 and 1999, Storm Lake's county, Buena Vista, asked IBP, owner of the local meatpacker plant and employer of most of the town's immigrants, to help pay to operate the jail, to build a new jail and to provide health care benefits to its production workers. IBP refused.³⁷

ENDNOTES:

Mike Wilson, "Fired Migrant Workers Tell of Poor Packing Plant Conditions," Associated Press, August 24, 2001. "Lawsuit Accuses IBP of Recruiting Illegal Immigrants," Associated Press, March 19, 2002.
Rick Smith, "Once Mostly Rural, Iowa Turning Urban," Associated Press, May 28, 2002.
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, "Summary Report: 2007 National Resources Inventory."
Iowa Association of Naturalists, Iowa Woodlands, Iowa's Biological Community Series, January 2002.
Iowa Association of Naturalists, Iowa Habitat Loss and Disappearing Wildlife, Iowa Environmental Series, September 1998.
Iowa Association of Naturalists, Iowa Wetlands, Iowa's Biological Community Series, January 2002.
Beck, Roy and Leon Kolankiewicz, "Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large U.S. Cities," NumbersUSA, March 2001.
The Road Information Project (TRIP), "Key Facts about Iowa’s Surface Transportation System and Federal Funding," May 2010.
"Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000," Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau. "Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 1990," 1990 Census, U.S. Census Bureau.
American Community Survey, 2008 Estimates, Custom Data Table.
Mike Glover, "Groups Call for Transit Spending, Sprawl Controls," Associated Press, November 13, 2001.
Jay Howe, "Urban Sprawl: We Ignore Smart Growth at Our Peril," Des Moines Register, February 8, 2001.
1000 Friends of Iowa, Ten Top Things Adversely Affected by Urban Sprawl, 2000.
American Community Survey, Three-Year Estimates 2006-2008. Data retrieved using ACS Custom Table tool.
Kids Count Data Center, which used 2008 American Community Survey Data.
"Changes in Nebraska's and Iowa's Counties With Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces," GAO, February 1998, GAO/RCED-98-62.
Carol Ann Riha, "Bigger Hispanic Households Spotlight Need for Housing," Associated Press, July 12, 2001.
Erin Coyle, "Housing Costs Deter Development," Dubuque Telegraph Herald, May 28, 2002.
National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2008. Estimate for 2002 from "Rental Housing for America’s Poor Families: Farther Out of Reach than Ever," National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2002.
"Changes in Nebraska's and Iowa's Counties With Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces," GAO, February 1998, GAO/RCED-98-62.
Migration Information Source State Data (Migration Policy Institute)
Urban Institute, Children of Immigrants Data Tool.
"New Study Finds Sluggish Wage, Population Growth," Associated Press, June 12, 2001.
Christopher Conte, "Strangers on the Prairie," Governing Magazine, January 2002.
"Family Well-Being and Welfare Reform in Iowa: A Profile of Storm Lake," Iowa State University, October 1999.
John Taylor, "Meatpacker Rejects Nebraska Request to Ameliorate Ills of Its Workers," Omaha World-Herald, September 20, 1999.
Iowa State Department of Education, The Annual State of Education Report, 2002 and 2006.
"School Board Hears Long List of Overcrowding Woes," Dubuque Telegraph Herald, October 15, 2002. "No School Realignment Next Year,""Dubuque Telegraph Herald, March 3, 2003.
Michael Corey, "Waukee Plans More Classrooms," Des Moines Register, October 25, 2001
Karla Scoon Reid, "Iowa Grapples with Growing Diversity," Education Week, October 9, 2000.
Christopher Conte, op.cit.
Jack Martin and Stanley Fogel. "Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050." FAIR. March 2006.
U.S. Geological Survey 2000
Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers.
David Barboza, "Meatpackers' Profits Hinge on Pool of Immigrant Labor," New York Times, December 21, 2001.
Laurie P. Cohen, "Free Ride: With Help from INS, U.S. Meatpacker Taps Mexican Work Force," Wall Street Journal, October 15, 1998.
John Taylor, op.cit.

Other Resources

State Local Reform Organizations

State Representatives Voting Record

Updated January 2012

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