Geof Fischer wants to dispel common misconceptions and myths about undocumented immigrants.

Fischer discussed several topics Tuesday ranging from the notion that immigrants take jobs to the myth that immigrants don’t want to learn English.

Fischer and the Iowa Immigration Education Coalition‘s goal is to balance the information the general public receives with the actual facts, instead of merely opinions and fallacies.

“We’re trying to bring civility to the conversation [and] we’re trying to bring facts to the conversation,” Fischer said.

Fischer was on campus on behalf of the IIEC — founded in 2008 — to educate Iowans about immigration and both the positive and negative impacts on different communities in Iowa.

The IIEC started after one of the largest raids that occurred in the town of Postville in northeast Iowa, in an attempt to enhance Iowa’s economy and quality of life, preserve families and affirm the dignity of immigrants.

“The people that are leading the discussion right now aren’t necessarily the ones we need to be listening to,” Fischer said.

Fischer helped the Postville community after the raid by helping at a food pantry that served approximately 150 people a day from a 2,000 person community.

With his hands-on experience in dealing with undocumented people in Iowa, Fischer has seen how it can not only tear families apart but tear communities apart as well.

One of the most common misnomers is that undocumented immigrants take jobs away from legal citizens.

A trend that is starting to show up across the country is states trying to govern immigration on a local level, even though it is a federal jurisdiction.

“We’re looking to a federal solution to these problems,” Fischer said. “Nobody is saying that undocumented immigration is a positive thing.”

Fischer recognized that while there needs to be a reform in immigration laws, there are also problems with the large number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

“We also have to weigh the contributions that these immigrants bring to these communities,” Fischer said.

Iowa’s population is growing due to immigration. The caucasian population in Iowa decreases every year by .02 percent while the Latino/a population continues to grow at a rate of 84 percent, greatly impacting employment and the economy.

“A lot of Iowa school districts would shut down if it weren’t for these immigrants coming in,” Fischer said.

“We’re seeing an increasingly diverse population in Iowa,” Fischer said about the historically homogeneous state.

One of the other myths addressed was that immigrants don’t want to be citizens.

“Overall, immigrants want to become citizens,” Fischer said. “They want to represent that [American] flag as much as possible. Whether they can or not is a different story.”