The Left Coast of Iowa

Unfortunately for the citizens of Iowa’s fifth district, my opponent for our Congressional seat, the incumbent Steve King, is on a very selfish, ego driven mission to make a name for himself, continuously espousing his ideology in the most outrageous attention-getting way possible whenever there is a camera or a microphone or a reporter anywhere near him.

And I must offer my congratulations and say, mission accomplished sir. You have made a name for yourself. But at what price to your constituents?

Since you arrived in Washington 14,000 of our neighbors have moved out of the fifth district and 15,000 more have moved into poverty, every one of our counties has seen an increase in food stamp recipients, more of our family farms are disappearing every day, non-farm employment in our district has dropped at double the statewide average, bankruptcies have increased by over 30% and most of our counties have lost more businesses than they have gained.

While Nero fiddles, Rome burns.

A recent venomous rant penned by the incumbent under the guise of an op-ed commentary about the May 1 nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” rallies was published in the Des Moines Register on April 27. It will go down in history as a last sickening gasp of a dying breed in Washington: the self-serving fear-monger.

As the incumbent set out to demonize and slander a significant portion of our society, he cited a number of “statistics and facts”, designed to lead readers to the conclusion that there walks among us a clear and present danger which threatens to take our jobs, rape our wives and steal our children; a danger which we must rid ourselves of at any cost. The “statistics and facts” cited by the incumbent in his diatribe are lies, a feeble attempt at creating fear and anger among us, and whose darker purpose is division and control.

The truth is that there are no comprehensive statistics kept by any law enforcement agencies or states regarding crimes committed by people who are in our country illegally. However, the most comprehensive survey to date of national crime data concludes, "In the small number of studies providing empirical evidence, immigrants are generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups, despite the wealth of prominent criminological theories that provide good reasons why this should not be the case."

Total crime and property crime in California are half what they were in 1980; violent crime has fallen more than a third. The state's Hispanic population during that time has increased 120 percent. Similarly, while Arizona's population grew 41.8 percent between 1993 and 2003, for instance, the rates for every major category of crime fell.

This doesn't mean immigrants from Mexico and Central America are saints -- it just means that they may not be the marauding horde Steve King and his minuteman army wants you to believe they are.

Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey reports that 62 percent of illegal immigrants pay income taxes (via withholding) and 66 percent contribute to Social Security. Forbes magazine notes that Mexican illegals aren't clogging up the social-services system: only 5 percent receive food stamps or unemployment assistance; 10 percent send kids to public schools.

On the work front, Hispanic unemployment has tumbled to 5.5 percent, only slightly above the national average of 4.7 percent and considerably lower than the black unemployment rate of 9.3 percent. According to 2002 Census Bureau data, Hispanics are opening businesses at a rate three times faster than the national average. In addition, there were almost 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses generating $222 billion in revenue in 2002.

Rather than panicking, we all need to take a deep breath and attempt a little common sense to find our common ground. Virtually everyone correctly agrees that we need to secure our borders, deport criminals and slackers among the illegal-immigrant population, and revitalize the notion of citizenship by insisting that prospective citizens master the English language and the fundaments of American history and culture.

The Statue of Liberty symbolizes America's affection for the world's tired and poor, the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Before our fear-mongering Congressman King starts knocking down Lady Liberty and sets about erecting a wall in her place to "protect" America from the world, shouldn't he at least spend a little time trying to get his facts straight?

I think we all understand the reality that ideology does not put food on our tables or bring jobs back to our towns. Ideology is not action and it is past time to take action. It is time to believe in ourselves. It is time to think about the kind of world we want to leave for our grandchildren and their children, and to take steps to begin creating that world.

To accomplish this, I am proposing an approach which focuses on the truth, not lies; on hope, not fear; on respect, not bigotry; and on the prosperity of community, not the poverty of division. This will leave little room for the self-serving politics of fear-mongering and divisiveness which have haunted the halls of Congress for far too long. Our greatest future is ahead of us as we escape the prison of fear and lies, and breathe the free air of hope and truth.

Simply stated, Steve King must go.

Bob Chambers lives near Essex, Iowa. He is a candidate for Congress from Iowa’s 5^th District.