DMR makes statement on immigration?

[CornField]

I've read this article a couple of times, but I'm still unsure about the motivation.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060420/NEWS08/604200407/1001&lead=1

Iowa lost residents at a higher rate than all but nine other states from 2000 to 2004, according to a new census report today .

What's more, the pace more than tripled during those years compared with the previous decade - and it appears a generation of Iowa's young people are taking flight.

About 35,000 more people left the state between 2000 and 2004 than moved here from elsewhere in the United States. Immigrants from other countries are keeping state population relatively stable, other census figures show.

Iowa had 21,081 legal immigrants from other countries arrive from 2000 to 2004. Iowa is also home to thousands of illegal immigrants who may or may not be counted by the census.

The article goes on to say that Iowa's out-migration was the 10th worst in the nation.

When looking at high school graduates and college graduates from any state, don't most want to "get the hell out"? I remember looking around during my sophomore year of high school and knowing, without question, that I didn't want to live in Oklahoma my entire life. Iowa wasn't really one of my wanted destinations at that point, but I've come to love it here. (Except for the winters -- which will eventually be the reason we leave.)

Getting back to the article, it is interesting how they place the news about immigrants so close to the top (journalists know you only put the esentials in the first 4-5 paragraphs), then drop it for the remainder. It makes me wonder if there wasn't more to the article that was cut by an editor.

[rurallib]

1. When some of my redneck acquaintances denounce immigrants

I remind them that the immigrants are the only part of Iowa that is growing. Iowa had about 3 million people in 1900 and has about 3 million now. The immigrant population has grown while others have left. So if you want to be anti-immigrant in Iowa you'd better be willing and able to handle the economic consequences.

[progressoid]

2. I'll have to remember that.