Iowa
H-1B visa holders protest Iowa bill to ban them from universities
Watch as Iowans rally against H‑1B hiring limits at state universities
Iowans rally against HF 2513, a bill prohibiting state universities from hiring H-1B visa holders from countries flagged as foreign adversaries.
Many wore hats and sunglasses and some brought umbrellas to shade themselves from the hot sun as they rallied at the Iowa Capitol in opposition to a bill that would prohibit the hiring of certain visa holders at Iowa’s public universities.
The group of about 150 marched in a circle with signs that read “International scholars build Iowa too,” “Education not discrimination,” and “Strong universities, strong Iowa.”
Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, as well as community colleges, would not be able to hire citizens from countries that are designated as foreign adversaries or state sponsors of terrorism under House File 2513. The House passed the bill on March 3 with a 68-27 vote. A Senate subcommittee recommends the bill’s passage.
Faculty members of Iowa State University and the University of Iowa spoke to the crowd at the rally Saturday, March 21 about their experiences as H-1B visa holders and how the bill would affect the university system and Iowa.
Hongwei Zhang, a computer engineering professor at Iowa State since 2017, said in an interview that “by this bill, H-1B visa holders may lose their rights to stay in Iowa. Essentially, families will potentially, starting July 1, have to move out of the state.”
Zengyi Shao, a chemical engineering professor at Iowa State, became a H-1B visa holder after completing her PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2009 and later became a U.S. citizen. The process took 17 years, she said, and “many people of Chinese origin who now work in universities and community colleges have followed this same path.”
“If this bill had been in place years ago, I would not have been able to come to Iowa and serve as an educator,” she said to the crowd. Shao has been teaching at Iowa State since 2013.
American flags were flown during the rally, organized by the Chinese Association of Iowa, United Chinese Americans, the Iowa City Area Chinese Association, the Chinese Faculty and Staff of Central Iowa Association, and Iowans for Brighter Future.
“What worries me is it will also push those who are already here, not including many current or even previous H-1B visa holders, to live in other states that are more welcoming,” Shao said. “So if this happens, basically the spirit of Iowa nice will likely become a thing of the past.”
Jie Lie, a researcher at Iowa State University who has lived in Iowa since 2009 and worked at the university since 2011, said the H-1B visa is a “pipeline of global talents for the United States.”
“It’s just trying to put Iowa in a very bad place,” Lie said of the bill.
What is House File 2513? What would it do if passed?
An H-1B visa allows “non-immigrant alien workers” to be hired for “specialty occupations or as fashion models,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor. A “specialty occupation” requires specialized knowledge and a minimum education of a bachelor’s degree, helping employers hire qualified candidates who cannot fulfill the needed skills and abilities of the U.S. workforce.
Having an H-1B visa allows for the temporary employment of qualified candidates who may not otherwise be authorized to work in the United States.
Under HF 2513, even those who hold a valid H-1B visa would be prohibited from entering into an employment contract if they come from countries identified as foreign adversaries or as state sponsors of terrorism, including China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Russia and Venezuela. If passed, it would take effect July 1.
During floor debate, Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said that “our universities are for Americans and Americans first.”
“This bill enhances national security and protects sensitive research at Iowa’s public universities by preventing potential risks from espionage or intellectual property theft associated with hires from adversarial nations such as China, aligning with broader U.S. concerns over foreign influence in academia while prioritizing American or allied talent,” Wheeler said.
There are about 120 employees through the H-1B visa program at Iowa’s state universities, according to the Iowa Board of Regents.
“If this bill passes, our jobs are gone,” said Emily Gao, an assistant teaching professor of architecture at Iowa State and an H-1B visa holder.
Iowa would join Texas, Florida in H-1B hiring halt
Iowa isn’t the first state to eye restrictions on hiring employees through the H-1B visa program.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Jan. 27 called for the freeze of new H-1B petitions at all Texas state agencies and universities, as well as a review of the current H-1B visa program “abuse.”
The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s university system, approved a one-year ban on hiring through the H-1B visa program on March 2.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a social media post in October universities across the nation are “importing foreign workers on H-1B visas instead of hiring Americans who are qualified and available to do the job.”
Iowa’s restrictions on H-1B visa hiring would follow President Donald Trump’s restrictions on the visa holders, unveiled in September, that decried the “large-scale replacement of American workers” and “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program and lamented the growth in the foreign share of the workforce in computer and math occupations.
The Iowa Capital Dispatch contributed to this report.
Kyle Werner is the breaking news and public safety reporter for the Register. Reach him at kwerner@registermedia.com.
Democrats are banking on a high-stakes, long-shot win in Iowa.
The Hawkeye State voted for President Donald Trump by 13 points in 2024 and hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008. Still, Democrats are optimistic that a perfect storm of soaring gas and healthcare costs, tariffs and an unpopular president could help them flip the Senate seat blue.
But Democrats first must get through a contentious June 2 primary between state Sen. Zach Wahls and state Rep. Josh Turek before they can even turn their attention to the presumptive GOP nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa).
The clash is a microcosm of the establishment moderate-versus-progressive insurgent battle raging within the Democratic Party, an ideological tussle that could cost them in November.
Wahls, a more left-wing candidate backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has made opposition to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer a major part of his message.
“When I’m doing my stump speech and tell people that on the first day of this campaign, I made a promise not to support Chuck Schumer for leader, the room — without any explanation — just spontaneously bursts into applause,” Wahls said in an interview.
Turek, who flipped a GOP-held Iowa Senate seat blue in 2022 and is the favored pick of Schumer’s allies, says Wahls is focused on the wrong issues.
“Wahls is out here running against Schumer. I’m out here running against Donald Trump and Ashley Hinson,” Turek declared. “In the thousands of doors that I’ve knocked, I’ve never heard a single Iowan talk to me about minority leadership.”
Wahls and Turek face off in the first head-to-head primary debate tonight. Warren is stumping for Wahls in Des Moines on May 10.
Some ad news. Outside groups are taking notice — and spending big. VoteVets is dropping another $800,000 on a pro-Turek ad buy starting Tuesday. The group, dedicated to electing Democrats with military service, has spent $6.7 million boosting Turek to date. In the new spot, a retired Army National Guard colonel says Turek will root out corruption and oppose Trump.
We’ll note Turek isn’t a veteran. But Turek’s father served in Vietnam, and his exposure to Agent Orange while serving contributed to Turek’s being born with spina bifida.
VoteVets first started spending for Turek on March 24.
Electability squabbles. In conversations with the Iowa Democratic hopefuls, both candidates insist they’re the only person who can beat Hinson in the fall.
“Zach comes from the bluest district in the state, a [Kamala] Harris +38 district. He’s never even run against a Republican,” Turek said. “This isn’t the time to be experimenting.”
Wahls countered that his record of opposing Democratic leadership will resonate with disaffected voters of all stripes.
“It is easier to draw that contrast [with Hinson] if you can tell people that you don’t owe Chuck Schumer a damn thing and that you don’t care about party bosses in either party,” Wahls said. “We can draw that contrast much, much more effectively than Josh can.”
Turek said he didn’t know if he would vote for Schumer as leader if elected.
“I need to get up there. I’m not measuring the drapes first,” Turek said.
State of play. Despite Iowa’s recent red tilt, Turek and Wahls argue that because the state’s farm industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs and higher gas prices, the president is no longer popular among Iowans.
Democrats are also optimistic that gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand will provide a lift to the rest of the ticket. Sand, the state auditor, is running a well-received campaign and is polling competitively with the GOP frontrunner, Rep. Randy Feenstra.
Iowa is a reach state for Democrats and exists outside of the core Senate map for the party. But in a blue wave environment where control of the chamber is in play, Democratic wins in states like Iowa could help push the party to the 51 seats needed to win a majority.
GOP view. Hinson has boosted Wahls by labeling him the “soon-to-be Democrat nominee” in social media posts. It’s a sign that some Iowa Republicans view Wahls as the more preferable general election candidate.
“With momentum building behind Wahls, time will tell if Schumer can carry his candidate across the finish line,” NRSC spokesperson Samantha Cantrell said in a statement.
Republicans are gleeful at the spate of competitive primaries dividing Democrats in key states. After the Maine primary where progressives came out on top, there are also Schumer-skeptical liberals running in Minnesota and Michigan.
Opposing Schumer may appeal to some Democratic primary voters, but the sentiment doesn’t directly impact his standing as leader. As long as Senate Democrats win the races they need to win in November, the New York Democrat is unlikely to be challenged for his job.
Happening today. Voters in Ohio and Indiana head to the ballot box for primary day.
Republicans will decide their candidate to face Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Derek Merrin is the favorite against state Rep. Josh Williams and former ICE official Madison Sheahan. This is a rightward-shifting district.
Air Force veteran Eric Conroy is favored to take on Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman.
Indiana. There aren’t any steeply competitive primaries in any battleground seats in Indiana. The one to watch is Indiana’s 1st District, where Republicans have an outside chance to knock off Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan. Republicans are excited by Barb Regnitz.
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa gas prices have topped $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022, averaging $4.11 a gallon.
According to GasBuddy, prices jumped 15 cents from Sunday night to Monday, up from $3.84 on Wednesday. Prices have risen 61 cents in the past month.
Iowa gas prices are $1.18 higher than a year ago. The highest recorded average in Iowa was $4.77 per gallon in June 2022.
Nationally, Georgia has the lowest average gas price at $3.85 per gallon, while California has the highest at $6.08.
Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.
Lost in the shuffle of the 2026 midterms — the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting, President Trump’s sagging favorability numbers and Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House and potentially the Senate — is an election story that could have implications for 2028 and beyond.
In 23 states, including five presidential swing states, candidates who have denied election results are running for offices that will have a direct role in certifying future elections.
That is according to a new analysis, shared exclusively with NPR ahead of its release, by States United Action, a nonprofit that seeks to protect elections and has been tracking candidate positions on the validity of election results since 2022.
“The goal is to be able to provide voters with the most accurate information possible,” said Joanna Lydgate, States United’s CEO, “and understand exactly what these candidates stand for and whether they fundamentally believe in free and fair elections in this country.”
In total, 39 states are holding elections this year for statewide positions that interact with elections, either for secretary of state or governor, which depending on the state has a role in administering or certifying elections, or for attorney general, which interprets and enforces election laws.
States United found at least 53 election-denying candidates are vying for those jobs at this point in the midterm cycle.
To define which candidates qualify for the title, States United tracks whether candidates meet at least one of five criteria, including whether they’ve falsely claimed Trump was the rightful winner in 2020 or if they’ve supported efforts to undermine results after audits and legal challenges were completed.
In most states, the elected position with the most direct responsibility over how elections run is secretary of state. These typically bureaucratic jobs took on new meaning in 2020, when officials from both parties faced unprecedented pressure from Trump and his allies to influence the results.
In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger declined Trump’s request to “find” 11,780 votes. In Michigan, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had armed protesters descend on her home in the weeks after voting ended.
Both swing states will elect new secretaries of state and governors this year, and both states currently have people in the running who have denied election results.
In Arizona, another presidential battleground, people who deny election results are running for all three critical statewide positions, according to States United’s analysis.
In 2020, Arizona’s Republican governor at the time, Doug Ducey, faced pressure from Trump to interfere in the certification process but declined to do so.
This year, however, the front-runner for the GOP nomination for governor in Arizona, Andy Biggs, voted not to certify those election results while he was serving in the U.S. House, and even made a call to a key state lawmaker at the time to investigate other ways to interfere with the process.
“We’ve watched these state officials on both sides of the aisle stand up and push back when Trump has tried to interfere with elections and election results in the past,” Lydgate said. “We know that they will do that again. But it’s incredibly important that we elect people who believe in our system and who believe in free and fair elections.”
Compared with recent cycles, the number of election deniers running this year in statewide races is actually down. Lydgate attributes that to state-level candidates realizing it’s a “bad campaign strategy” in places that will have competitive races come November.
“Election denial is not something that American voters like, and candidates who’ve run on that platform have paid a real price in the past,” Lydgate said.
After the 2022 midterms, an NPR analysis found that Republican secretary of state candidates who denied the results of the 2020 election generally underperformed other GOP candidates in competitive states. A separate analysis of the same election by States United estimated the penalty for election denial to be roughly 3 percentage points.
Candidates running in states Trump won by double digits, or in crowded primaries where they are seeking Trump’s endorsement, clearly aren’t being dissuaded by that data however.
Brendan Fischer, who leads research into efforts to undermine elections at the Campaign Legal Center, says a powerful “election denial infrastructure” has cropped up since 2020, which has proven effective at moving candidates and lawmakers toward false theories about voting and policy responses to that misinformation.
“The election denier movement still represents a tiny, tiny minority of the country,” Fischer said. “But it is an energized and active force within Republican politics. It’s an organized interest group that [Republican candidates and lawmakers] need to be at least somewhat responsive to.”
Copyright 2026 NPR
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