How States Can Help Turn an Immigration Logjam Into a Success

A call for bipartisan solutions

I’m honored to have a piece on immigration reform in the New York Times this morning with my friends Kristie De Peña and David Oman. Kristie is Vice President for Policy and Director of Immigration Policy at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C. David is the former Chief of Staff for former Iowa Governors Robert Ray and Terry Branstad and former co-chair of the Iowa Republican Party. David was there when Governor Ray and Iowa led the nation in settling refugees after the Viet Nam War (as was my friend Governor Ray’s former Press Secretary Richard Gilbert). 

David lives in Des Moines and tells me he knows third-generation Iowans, the grandkids of those original refugees. He also tells me that photos of Governor Ray still hang on the walls in many of the homes of former refugees, their kids, and grandkids.

Why did we write it? We wrote it for the same reason all writers write. We write to change the world. Sometimes the goal of the writer is intimate, and small. To tell someone you love them, or to introduce your readers to a part of the world they don’t know. Kristina, David and I want to help refugees all over the world reach safety and help our local economies, and we provide some bi-partisan ideas about how to do it.

Will it change the world? Who knows. But we had to try. The situation is horrifying, and fixing the problem isn’t rocket science--it’s simply a matter of political will. And you can help. Please consider writing your congressmen and women and tell them what you think.

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You might wonder how I know Kristie De Peña. It’s a good story.

I’ve had a number of pieces in the New York Times over the years. I don’t know exactly how many, but I feel extremely lucky whenever I get one in. There are so many great writers out there, including my associates in the wonderful Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. I think it’s bad karma to count. And when I get one in, two things often happen--one that is unsettling, the other wonderful. The first is I get a messages that say “You are stupid, I hate you, and I am going to kill you.” 

The wonderful thing is when I publish a piece and some real experts chime in, sort of like, “hey, great piece, but did you think of X?” It’s amazing, and empowering, and sometimes it helps me write a new piece.

This happened after my friend Matt Russell and I had a column in the Times titled Why Rural America Needs Immigrants. I miss writing with Matt, but rest assured we will be at it again when he is no longer serving in the Biden/Harris administration as the State Executive Director of the USDA Farm Service Agency in Iowa.

Anyway, after that piece, we received an email from Ali Noorani, then the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, with lots of great information that I used in subsequent pieces, giving credit to Ali where appropriate.

I had a very rough draft of the piece in the Times today done, but I realized that I needed help from an immigration expert. I reached out to Ali, and asked him if he wanted to help. He told me he liked the ideas, and would love to help, but he was still settling in at his new job as a Program Director of the Hewlett Institute.

To make a long story short, Ali introduced me to Kristie--we hit if off after a Zoom call and oodles of emails, and the rest is history.

I asked my friend David to be a co-author as well because of his insights about the Ray administration efforts, and because we see each other regularly and almost always talk about the need for immigration reform. He has great ideas, and is a fierce advocate.

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