A coalition of Republican leaders has formed the Iowa Alliance for Growth to push for immigration reform, encouraging presidential candidates to debate the issue.

The group notes that many parts of the country, including Iowa, struggle with workforce issues that could be eased if laws changed to smooth the path to visas and citizenship.

“We are addressing the need for more Iowa Republicans to support immigration reform,” said former Des Moines business leader and longtime Washington, D.C., administration staffer Ron Langston. “There pretty much has been no involvement.”

Langston, who served in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, said: “It’s not just a workforce issue. It’s a national security issue. You can’t have 11 million people who you don’t know where they are or who they are.” 

He said Iowa has a worker shortage in tech fields. Nearly 42 percent of students earning master’s degrees and Ph.D.s in those fields from Iowa’s universities were born in other countries.

Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and president of the center-right policy group American Action Forum, said the country could spend $400 billion to $600 billion to apprehend, charge, house and deport the 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally. The loss of the undocumented workers would mean a loss of $1.6 trillion in gross domestic product, he added.

“If we don’t have immigration, we shrink,” Holtz-Eakin said in an interview. “Japan is doing this already. “

The Iowa group called for:

* Securing the border.

* Supporting visas and guest-worker programs for high-skilled and high-demand occupations.

* Creating the framework for the 11.5 million immigrants currently living in the U.S. illegally to “get right with the law.” 

Read a guest opinion relating to immigration reform on BusinessRecord.com.