(Radio Iowa) – A new report by the American Immigration Council has found immigrants could help fill the growing number of vacant health care positions in Iowa. Steven Hubbard is a senior data analyst with the non-profit. He says states like Iowa can look at their policies to see if there are ways to make them more friendly to immigrants with health care training. “Are there laws or regulations that don’t allow for international students or, you know, people who have a degree in the field and have the qualifications, but just don’t have the citizenship requirements met?,” he says.

The report says more than 15 percent of immigrants in Iowa with professional or doctoral degrees work in health care professions that do not require their degree.  “They’re not working in their capacity, where they could be in a position, you know, as a doctor, or in another area, where they’re where they have the expertise, but they’re not working in that area,” Hubbard says.

The report found health care worker job postings in Iowa increased seven-point-five percent from 2017 to 2021.

(reporting By Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) –  West Des Moines police have charged a son and his girlfriend with the murder of a man they say was intentionally or recklessly denied adequate medical care and living conditions. Police found 58-year-old Steven Schaper was living in deplorable conditions in August of last year, and he later died at the hospital. Police their investigation led to charges of second-degree murder against his son, 24-year-old Jacob Schaper, and 23-year-old Jocelyn Grisham. Police describe the two as the caretakers for Steven Schapper.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill to reinstate the death penalty in a limited number of cases is eligible for debate in the Iowa Senate. The bill would make those convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering a person under the age of 18 eligible for a death sentence. Republican Senator Julian Garrett of Indianola, a retired attorney, would vote to make the death penalty an option in far more cases.

“Given how difficult it is to get a bill passed in this legislature, we’re narrowing it down as much as we possibly can,” Garrett says. The bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-to-eight vote. Senator Janice Weiner, a Democrat from Iowa City, says it’s an international embarrassment that some U.S. states still have the death penalty.

“It puts us right in line with Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and North Korea,” she says. Other Democrats, like Senator Tony Bisignano of Des Moines say if there’s a mistake and an innocent person is put to death, there’s no reversing that. “The state should not be in the business of killing people,” Bisignano says. Garrett considers the death penalty a deterrent and he says a wrongful conviction is a worthwhile trade off.

“If we make a mistake now and then and, as I say, mistakes under current technology are minuscule and we can save some innocent women’s lives down the road, that’s where the trade off is,” Garrett says. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has said he could support the death penalty on moral grounds. But Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says it’s impractical for several reasons.

The drugs to administer a lethal injection are hard to find and Holt says the cost of sentencing someone to spend the rest of their life in prison is far less than the court costs associated with appeals to a death sentence and the expense of maintaining a death row in the state’s prison system.

(Radio Iowa) – Anyone who can legally own a gun would be able to carry it, loaded with bullets, while driving on a public highway under legislation that’s cleared a House subcommittee. Current law says guns are to be unloaded while a vehicle is moving. The bill also says anyone who can legally own a gun can leave it in their locked vehicle at work, at a school, or at a community college or public university as long as it’s out of sight. A lobbyist for an Iowa business group says that would violate a business owner’s property rights to decide whether to allow firearms – even in the parking lot of the business.

Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, says in this case property rights should not outweigh the Second Amendment. “We also have the rights of the law abiding citizen who owns that vehicle to think about as well,” Holt says. Another gun-related bill that’s passed a House subcommittee would direct K-12 schools to provide lessons on gun safety. In 2020, gun injuries were the number one cause of death among children in the U.S. and Representative Ako Abdul-Samad of Des Moines says teaching students how to react when they see a gun is part of reversing that trend.

“We’ve had children come over to my agency and turn in a gun that they found in a bag in the park,” Abdul-Samad says. “That’s a reality now.” Abdul-Samad, a Democrat, is co-sponsoring the bill with a Republican from northwest Iowa. A volunteer with the Moms Demand Action group says gun safety should be the responsibility of gun owners, not children.