How immigrants, even undocumented, are shoring up your financial future

What the anti-foreign-born campaign rhetoric leaves out

As election season heats up in Iowa, so do the narratives against those of us born abroad and, though it’s not explicitly said, in the non-Western world. Our ranks, it is implied, are teeming with criminals and freeloaders; we’re stealing jobs, draining public benefits, filling schools with foreign tongues and casting our fraudulent ballots at polling places.

“Protesters are demanding that violent, illegal immigrant criminals be allowed to stay in our country without consequence,” says a 2025 statement by Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks referring to anti-ICE protests. She’s seeking re-election.

Ashley Hinson, a congresswoman seeking a U.S. Senate seat, has called for revoking the nonprofit status of an organization that teaches immigrants their rights when approached by federal immigration agents.

And as part of his “Iowa First” campaign, gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn issues a meaningless call to end public benefits to undocumented immigrants ― who are already ineligible for food stamps (SNAP), Medicaid, Medicare, children’s health insurance and Social Security benefits. That leaves hospital emergency rooms, which can’t deny anyone, regardless of status or income.

Baseless anti-immigrant rhetoric from Republican office-seekers is particularly intense with Donald Trump controlling the White House, and Trump loyalists controlling all three branches of Iowa government, and congressional seats. But for all the dog-whistles, the data shows that immigrant labor is critical to keeping not just jobs filled but Social Security afloat. Without it, the 2025 Social Security trustees’ report projects that the Social Security Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability trust fund reserves would be depleted by 2034.

The reliance on foreign workers’ earnings includes both documented and undocumented employees, because Social Security taxes are withdrawn from their paychecks regardless of visa status. In 2022, according to a report from the American Immigration Council, undocumented immigrants alone paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes. An estimated $25.7 billion of that went to Social Security. What’s more, in 40 states, undocumented immigrants pay state and local taxes at higher rates than the top 1% of that state’s households.

Going back 75 years, the actuaries have found that as immigration has increased, the trust fund deficit has decreased.

Foreign-born immigrants are more likely to be of working age than their U.S.-born counterparts. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the population of 25- to 54-year-olds would have been 8 million lower between 2000 and 2023 if not for immigrants and their children who were born here.

Bottom line: Our labor helps keep Americans afloat too.

But that hasn’t stopped Lahn from taking aim at even H-1B visa holders, who are hired and sponsored by U.S. employers for finite periods to fill worker shortages, often in information technology. “Iowa jobs are for Iowans,” his ads declare, calling for people on H-1B visas to be barred from state government and university jobs. “Our universities are for Iowans.”

Lahn rejects the idea that Iowans aren’t available or interested in doing jobs typically filled by immigrants, from hospital nurses to agricultural laborers to construction workers. And while he touts Iowans’ strong education and work ethics, he seems oblivious to Iowa’s accelerating brain drain. A study by the nonprofit institute Common Good Iowa found that in 2024 Iowa ranked fourth in the nation in its net outmigration of 25- to 29-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees. That causes a gap of $383,991 in tax revenue by the state and local governments over those exiting Iowans’ working lives.

Candidates might want to examine the reasons behind Iowa’s brain drain, which Lahn may not see happening because, as he acknowledges, he divides his time between Iowa and Kansas. And they should heed some of the answers departing Iowans give about why. Among other things, they cite our state’s growing intolerance of differences, defunding of public schools and educational restrictions on what can be taught and read.

And when voters tell pollsters the economy is their top concern, candidates should be careful what they themselves are pushing for. Hinson wants ICE actions to go unchallenged. Miller-Meeks boasted in her news release, “I voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which authorizes 10,000 more border security agents, completes the fence with accompanying technology, and gives CBP and ICE the tools to do their job.”

But the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit institute that analyzes budget and tax policies, says this: “The Administration’s mass deportation program — including of people who have been living and working in the U.S. lawfully and whose status is being revoked — will not only have huge personal consequences for immigrants and their families, but will worsen Social Security’s finances, affecting all workers and beneficiaries.”

Politicians of all political persuasions would do well to consider the many Iowans and others who will also be forced to pay the price of ongoing deportations and visa restrictions. And those include retiring Iowans counting on Social Security’s solvency in their golden years.

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This column appears in the June 28 Des Moines Sunday Register. I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative. Click below for the full roster.

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