Businesses need immigrants for their workforce
Here’s why the labor shortage is awful for business owners like me: It not only impacts our ability to operate or grow, but we waste thousands in hiring and recruitment. I recently tried to hire a silk screener for my specialized merchandise and awards company, Superior Trophies and Buckles. We paid to advertise on multiple job sites, and our managers spent weeks interviewing candidates. We finally settled on the perfect person — he seemed experienced and excited about the position. But on the first day, he didn’t show. He never reached out to explain. We started the process all over again, but we couldn’t find anyone. We were left with no choice but to outsource our screen printing to another company, which negated our opportunity to grow, train employees and be self-sufficient.
It’s bad out there, but there’s a solution: allow businesses to hire more immigrants, especially the millions of young people who came to this country as children and still lack permanent legal status, known as Dreamers. Ten years ago this summer, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was launched. It has given temporary legal and work authorization to 800,000 of these young people. But the program has long been at risk, and last year a federal judge in Texas ruled against the program, which halted any new applications. This spring, around 100,000 young immigrants graduated from high school without the ability to apply for legal status. This is disastrous for our economy. We now have a whole generation coming of age who aren’t eligible to work legally — at a moment when businesses desperately need workers.
As an owner of multiple businesses — two in retail, one in specialized merchandise and one in a highly skilled service industry — employing close to 1,150 people as full-time or contract, I know that quality workers are essential. We are currently trying to hire three to five skilled positions in accounting, graphic design and production. This fall, we will need additional employees, and I don’t want to have to scale back my operations, turn to third-party vendors or outsource work abroad. I want to make sure we’re growing and profitable. More than 200,000
Dreamers call Texas home, and I would be thrilled to consider them for hire if I could legally do so.
Thanks to DACA, many of the Dreamers who were brought to our state without legal permission have work permits and are currently filling crucial roles in accounting, nursing and teaching. More than 160,000 work in the restaurant industry, representing 1.7 percent of its workers. But a growing number are now shut out of the DACA program, even though they grew up in our local communities, attended our schools and are fluent in English. They have no way to earn a legal, living wage, despite the fact that scores of businesses would snap them up. My family owns Molina’s Cantina, a Houston institution for 81 years and founded by my grandparents, both of whom were immigrants. They’re short on workers like everyone else. It’s worrying; I can’t help but look at places like Taco Crush near Dallas, which had to shut its doors because of staffing shortages.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs: My grandfather and my grandmother, my father and many of my uncles, aunts and cousins have owned or run businesses. I grew up watching my dad run a location of Molina’s Cantina. During elementary school, I worked there myself as a busboy. I’ve seen firsthand how important employees are to a business. I quickly learned that without a talented, hardworking and diverse workforce, there no business. Last year, more than 90 percent of state and local chambers of commerce said worker shortages were holding back their economies. And this February, 61 percent of smallbusiness owners reported raising prices partly because of labor shortages.
Our economy can’t afford to lose out on talented workers — today or in the future. And yet the undocumented population that graduates from high school without work authorization is estimated to grow by another 100,000 each year. Congress must create a permanent legal pathway for all Dreamers. It’s the only way to bring this workforce out of the shadows and into the businesses that desperately need them.