Leaders share thoughts on impacts of mass deportations, border security and immigration 

In light of sweeping, mass deportations, the American Business Immigration Coalition hosted a call with various leaders across the United States Jan. 27.  

Included on the panel was Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden; Adam Lampert, CEO of Cambridge Caregivers/Manchester Care Homes; Tony DiMare, president of DiMare Homestead of Florida; Monica Villalobos, president and CEO of Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Marc Schulman, president of Eli’s Cheescake; and Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition. 

Specifics

Shi said more than 1,000 individuals had been detained in cities like Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles in the days since President Donald Trump signed the order. 

“The border czar, Tom Homan, has said these raids are focused on violent criminals and cartels, but he has also shared that all essential workers are on the table,” Shi said. “Fear and anxiety are gripping employers and communities alike, and businesses are feeling the impact.” 

According to Shi, ABIC members have reported up to 50% slowdown in operations and foot traffic because immigrants are paralyzed by fear and are staying home. 

ABIC is urging Congress and the White House to “secure our borders and secure our workforce.” The system also must protect law-abiding immigrant workers who are vital to agriculture, health care, construction and manufacturing, Shi said. 

Immigrant essential workers make up 25% to 50% of the essential industries and contribute more than $80 billion in taxes annually, Shi said.  

Agriculture

Agriculture, by far, has the most immigrant workers. A Google search shows around 67% of crop farm workers are immigrants, with 40% of those not authorized to work in the United States. 

Teagarden said U.S. agriculture has to have access to a reliable, legal labor force to ensure agricultural products reach consumers in a timely manner.  

“Labor is a critical issue for Kansas livestock producers and agriculture as a whole,” he said. “Kansas unemployment rate is 3.5%, and in southwest Kansas, where most of our feed yards, dairies and processing facilities are located, the unemployment rate is about a point lower.” 

Borders need to be secured while simultaneously offering guest worker programs to meet the needs of the livestock industry, according to Teagarden. 

“There is a choice here to be made,” he said. “We can import workers and continue to produce our food here in the United States, or we can import food, and as we talk about that and recognize that food security is a national security issue, the time to address this issue is now.” 

Much like the livestock industry, crop farms need legal workers, DiMare said. His 97-year-old family operation grows fresh tomatoes in Florida and California. The farm relies on immigrant labor because of the way tomatoes have to be harvested. The majority of his employees are through the federal H-2A temporary agricultural workers program. 

“But with the seasonality of our industry, it is becoming more and more challenging to try to find legal domestic workforce, and therefore our only alternative is to lean on the federal guest worker program,” he said. 

Agreeing with Teagarden, he said immigration reform needs to be sensible, but it’s desperately needed to secure northern and southern borders. Not securing borders creates fears that citizens of this country are not safe, he said, and deportation is one tool to deal with migrants who are not upholding the laws of the United States. 

“I am certainly in favor of the initiative that’s going on right now with this new administration,” DiMare said. 

Shulman, too, has a long history in the food business, being part of the third generation in it. His parents and grandparents came to the U.S. as refugees. 

“Along the way, we developed strategies of a really talented and diverse workforce,” Shulman said. “Two of those strategies are hiring people with disabilities and also hiring immigrants.” 

He’s been able to recruit through refugee and resettlement agencies and programs. 

“We don’t hire temporary workers. Everyone is permanent,” he said.  

Health care concerns

Lampert operates several care homes in Texas and employs 350 people—80% of whom are foreign born.  

“Over the last five years, I’ve watched our labor costs increase 30%,” he said. “In a word, mass deportations will simply cause inflation because if we can’t source immigrants to do these jobs, we’ll be forced to pay more money to find workers.” 

He experienced this in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, and he found American citizens don’t want to do some of the jobs companies like his perform.  

“The reality is that we just had to pay immigrants more money, and this premium we ultimately passed on to you, the consumer,” he said. “If there’s another scramble like this to secure caregivers in a tight labor market that we create by deportations, you can expect prices to increase, and this is exactly what inflation is.” 

Lampert said there is a need for 1 million more nurses each year, and that the need cannot be met with a domestically supplied workforce. 

Chamber of commerce

Villalobos believes there has to be another way to address immigration, and she is not asking for open borders.  

“We cannot deport our way out of the border crisis,” she said. “We are all looking for a strong economy, and that is through the backbone of American small businesses and making that stronger.” 

The Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce represents 1,200 small businesses. One of its priorities has been protecting employees and keeping businesses afloat. 

“These are really top of mind when we discuss immigration policy with our business owners,” she said. “We also know that about half of minority business enterprises are family-owned, and when you think about mixed status households, that this has a huge implication for businesses’ ability to be able to survive.” 

Arizona has become a target, she said, and currently there are nearly 180,000 open jobs in the state. Housing for those employees is limited, and when the available workforce is decreased for certain sectors like construction, it causes a lot of problems.  

Villalobos said Yuma, Arizona, is the lettuce capital of the world, and whenever there is a shift in immigration policies, prices go up. 

“You may see lettuce go up to $15 a head sooner than later because of its geography,” she said. “For us, it has been about how can we provide a legal path for these workers to do that work that no one else will do.” 

Teagarden reiterated the need for more workers, and he’d like to see year-round options for a guest worker program. This is important for those industries that support livestock producers—grain production, elevators and related sectors. 

“The H-2A program hasn’t provided adequate workers for them,” he said. “I think if you look at our unemployment levels, and if you look at specifically southwest Kansas, 2.5% unemployment is not providing enough. There’s just not enough slack in the system at that level to fill these jobs, and we just need more flexibility.” 

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or kscott@hpj.com.