Zach Lahn, the GOP’s candidate for the Iowa governorship, is promising to block state hiring of H-1B visa workers for white-collar jobs and is condemning a House bill to expand the inflow of H-2A laborers into the state’s agricultural sector.
“I fundamentally and completely reject the idea that America will not thrive without illegal foreign labor,” Lahn posted July 22.
His post responded to an article at Politico.com about the business-backed effort by rural GOP legislators to create a huge rural workforce of foreigners with temporary H-2A visas.
Lahn added:
every time there’s a push for amnesty in DC, the talking points are always the same: “We have to do this for the (insert group).”
This time they’re saying: “It’s what the farmers want!”
But, it’s always the same lobbyists and multinational corporations profiting off cheap foreign labor that are feeding politicians those talking points.
Lahn won his June primary against the Trump-endorsed, establishment GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra. In April, Feenstra led Lahn by 41 percent to 9 percent. But on June 2, Lahn edged past Feenstra, winning by 38 percent to 37 percent. On election night, Lahn declared:
I fear every day we are losing the Iowa we love. We’ve lost 10,000 family farms since 2000. Our young people are leaving faster than 46 other states because they don’t see enough opportunity here … Wall Street hedge funds and foreign interests are buying and selling their land, driving up costs, so our kids are priced out of the market. They treat Iowa land like it’s a commodity instead of our inheritance. They treat us like numbers, not neighbors. This is over when I’m governor.
In June, Lahn slammed the decision by the current governor, Kim Reynolds, to outsource almost 200 of the state government’s computer-management jobs to an outsourcing firm that profits by importing Indians with H-1B visas:
As Governor, state contracts will not go to H1B outsourcing firms. To go further, a major criteria for competitiveness for any state contact will be what percentage of the workforce is made up of Iowans. Want to be competitive? Hire more Iowans.
On July 23, the LayoffHedge site on X showed that the outsourcing contract allows the Iowans’ jobs to be sent to India.
Lahn “is saying all the right things for an America First immigration policy,” responded Rosemary Jenks, the co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project. She told Breitbart News:
He understands what the problems are, and is willing to oppose them. That’s fantastic — we need more people like that … It is absolutely true that being on the right side of reducing visa workers to help Americans go back to work is a winning issue, and I think Lshn proves it. His percentage [in the state primary] would have been even higher if people had known at that point that Congressman Feenstra was a co-sponsor of the agricultural amnesty bill.
Lahn also opposes the state universities’ policies of transferring hundreds of well-paid jobs to foreigners, usually Indians, via the H-1B program.
Iowa’s leaders have allowed the job transfers to continue, even as they loudly complain about the “brain drain” of young Iowa graduates from the state.
A growing number of GOP politicians are denouncing the visa programs, partly because polls show Americans’ increasing anger at the massive loss of jobs, careers, and opportunities for young Americans.
At least two million white-collar jobs in the United States are held by foreign contract workers who are imported via the supposedly temporary H-1B, L-1, L-2, TN, J-1, H4, E-2, EB-2 NIW, OPT, and CPT work programs.
The opponents include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas senatorial candidate Ken Paxton, Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, Montana Senator Tim Sheehy, and Utah Senator Mike Lee.
Several House members are also campaigning against the visa programs, including Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, Arizona Rep. Eli Crane, Florida Rep. Greg Stuebe, and West Virginia’s Riley Moore.
“The Overton Window has shifted massively,” said Jenks, adding:
There is increasingly public questioning by members of Congress and other politicians about the actual impact of these [visa] programs is on Americans. That’s the central question that we should be asking about every immigration program: What is the impact on Americans? Who is helped? Who is hurt?
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