New Report Shows Immigrant Texans Held are Vital to the Food and Agriculture Industry in Texas

New research from the American Immigration Council underscores the crucial role that immigrants play in Texas’ food sectors, including agriculture. The new report, From Field to Fork: The Economic Impact of Immigrants on Texas’ Food Industry, was prepared in partnership with Texans for Economic Growth, a statewide 160+ member business coalition powered by the American Immigration Council. The report focuses on the state of Texas, with a spotlight on the Houston Metro Area.  

The report was publicly released in collaboration with multiple Texas-based partners at an event hosted by Amegy Bank. The regional event served to showcase the findings of the report and discuss the impact of immigration on Texas’ food industry with local leaders. The May 21 event featured a discussion with business and civic leaders about how Texas can act on this topic.  

“Texas’ agriculture and food industries are a cornerstone of our state’s economy, generating more than $102 billion in economic output and supporting communities across every region of Texas,” says Chelsie Kramer, Texas State Organizer for the American Immigration Council and Texans for Economic Growth. “This report underscores something Texas employers and community leaders already know firsthand: immigrants are essential to keeping our food system moving.  The report also highlights the reality that 14.5 percent of Texas’ food workers and 13.5 percent of the state’s agricultural workforce are undocumented immigrants, reinforcing that workforce stability and practical policy conversations are critical to the long-term strength and competitiveness of Texas’ food economy.” 

“Texas restaurants are built by people who work hard, serve their neighbors and help make our communities stronger. Immigrant workers have long been part of that story, not only in restaurant kitchens and dining rooms, but across the farms, suppliers and small businesses that make our food system work,” says Emily Williams Knight, Ed.D., president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association. “This report is an important reminder that practical workforce solutions do exist that would protect local businesses, keep food costs in check and preserve the hospitality that defines communities across Texas.” 

“This report provides crucial data on the essential role that immigrants play to power the American food system via Texas, from farms to restaurants,” says Anne McBride, Vice President of Impact at the James Beard Foundation. “These two sectors cannot exist without the other and face similar challenges when it comes to our immigrant entrepreneurs and workers, which is why the James Beard Foundation is thrilled to partner on the release of this important work.” 

“This report highlights a reality Texas employers know well: immigrant workers are essential to the strength, stability, and competitiveness of our agricultural and food economy. As Texas continues to grow, maintaining a dependable workforce will remain critical to supporting our producers, businesses, and consumers alike,” noted Justin Yancy, President & CEO of Texas Business Leadership Council, a statewide network of senior business leaders. 

Key Findings

• Across the Texas food sector, 400,500 immigrant workers make up nearly one-quarter (24.9 percent) of the workforce, contributing to industries including, agriculture, food processing, food wholesale trade, food retail trade, and food services. Beyond farms and ranches, immigrants are essential across the broader food supply chain. These interconnected industries rely on immigrant labor to move food from production to consumers.  
• Immigrant workers in Texas’ hold a wide range of immigration statuses. About one-fifth of workers in the food sector are naturalized citizens, while 14.5 percent were undocumented, including 20,100 DACA-eligible individuals. The state’s reliance on workers with a range of immigration statuses across the food industry means that shifts in immigration policy acutely affect workforce stability and the continuity of food production and distribution. 
• In 2024, agriculture, food processing, and food services generated $102.6 billion in economic output in Texas. The state exports $6.5 billion worth of agricultural commodities annually and is responsible for a sizable share of the United States’ agricultural exports. 
• Immigrant workers fill key occupations across the food sector. They comprised 47.8 percent of miscellaneous agricultural workers, 31.7 percent of cooks, and 24.6 percent of cashiers. Farms, restaurants, and grocery stores rely on immigrants to staff key frontline positions. 
• In 2024, agriculture and food services generated approximately $2.7 million in GDP in the Houston Metropolitan Area, and immigrants comprised over one-third (34.3 percent) of the workforce in the food sector. 

Read the full factsheet to learn more.   

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About the American Immigration Council 

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. In January 2022, the Council and New American Economy merged to combine a broad suite of advocacy tools to better expand and protect the rights of immigrants, more fully ensure immigrants’ ability to succeed economically, and help make the communities they settle in more welcoming. Follow the latest Council news and information on ImmigrationImpact.com and Twitter @immcouncil.   

About Texans for Economic Growth 

Texans for Economic Growth is a coalition of more than 145 Texas business leaders and associations dedicated to recognizing and supporting immigrants’ positive impact on the Texas economy as business owners, taxpayers, and consumers. With its launch on February 26, 2019, the coalition released the Texas Compact on Immigration, a set of principles signed by more than 145 Texas business leaders and groups to guide the immigration discussion at the state and federal levels. Texans for Economic Growth supports common-sense federal immigration reforms and statewide policies that recognize the valuable contributions immigrants make to the state. Learn more at txcompact.org. 

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As Public Support for Mass Deportation Falls, New Proposal Seeks to Restore Credibility and Humanity in Immigration Enforcement

Washington DC, May 12 Tues – Today, the American Immigration Council released a new framework calling for the overhaul of the United States’ immigration enforcement system. The framework argues that the country’s current approach is fundamentally disconnected from public safety and has trapped the immigration debate into a false binary between either mass deportation or no enforcement at all.

Restoring Credibility and Humanity: A New Framework for Immigration Enforcement, lays out a roadmap for replacing indiscriminate mass deportation with a system focused on increasing compliance with the law, prioritizing public safety threats, proportionate consequences, and meaningful accountability for government abuse. 

Read the framework here.

The proposal comes amid growing backlash to the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, which has swept in longtime residents, families, business owners, and people actively pursuing lawful status.

“Mass deportation has eroded public trust in the federal government by treating every immigrant as a violent criminal,” said Nayna Gupta, national policy director and co-author of the report. “A credible system should give people who want to follow the rules, a way to do so, and use consequences that are proportionate to the actual violation. The Trump administration has weaponized outdated laws that use detention and deportation as a one-size-fits-all punishment, even for people with long-standing ties who pose no public safety threat.” 

The framework proposes major reforms across four pillars: 

• Creating a new process for long-term undocumented residents to gain lawful permanent status through fines, community service, and probation-like systems instead of deportation. 
• Revising outdated laws to focus enforcement on people convicted of violent or especially serious recent crimes while professionalizing enforcement.
• Legislating new, proportionate consequences for violations of immigration law, rather than subjecting every immigration violator to detention and deportation. 
• Establishing independent oversight and stronger court authority to hold immigration agencies and agents accountable for abuses. 

The framework argues that immigration enforcement should be measured not by the number of deportations carried out, but by whether laws are enforced consistently, fairly, and humanely.  

“The whole goal when all this immigration stuff started ramping up about a year and a half ago was to get violent offenders off the street. And no one has any problem with that. The issue is you have people who are here and they are following the rules—people who are reporting to their regular check-ins and being taken into custody at those check-ins. Things like that really erode trust and really make it more dangerous for everyone out here when law enforcement can’t be trusted,” said Joseph Kennedy, sheriff of Dubuque county, Iowa. 

The framework also calls for sweeping accountability reforms, asserting that public confidence in immigration enforcement cannot be rebuilt without meaningful oversight and consequences for abuses of power. That means that agencies and agents that abuse their power should be reined in or pushed out. Among other recommendations, the proposal calls for expanding judicial authority to review unlawful enforcement actions, creating an independent immigration accountability commission, strengthening internal oversight offices within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and giving victims of civil rights violations the ability to sue. 

“Building a credible and humane immigration enforcement system depends on establishing that enforcement agencies are accountable both to the public and other branches of government,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow and co-author of the report. “No law enforcement agency can maintain legitimacy if abuses of power carry no consequences. A credible enforcement system must give courts and Congress stronger authority to intervene when federal agencies and officers abuse their authority.”

The framework warns that the U.S. has reached a critical point after decades of failed immigration policymaking that is overly focused on punishment instead of long-term compliance and public safety. According to the report, continuing down the path of indiscriminate enforcement risks locking the country into a permanent system of mass detention and social disruption. 

“We are facing a choice between indiscriminate enforcement that destabilizes communities and pulls resources away from genuine public safety threats, versus credible enforcement that is targeted, proportional, and actually capable of delivering public safety,” said Gupta. “The question is not whether immigration laws should be enforced. The question is whether enforcement will be smart, focused, and humane, or driven by fear, quotas, and political theater.” 

The full framework is available here. 

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Senate Pushes Ahead with $70 Billion More for ICE and CBP, Excluding Accountability Measures

This week, Congress moved closer to advancing legislation that would add about $70 billion in funding to immigration enforcement agencies through 2029, which is in addition to the $170 billion already provided last year. If enacted, the proposal would mark yet another circumvention of the regular government funding process—which requires bipartisan negotiations—to fund these agencies.

This funding is being pursued through the reconciliation process, which bypasses the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. For the second time, congressional leaders aim to use reconciliation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and its subagencies, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Since February 14, Democrats have refused to fund ICE and CBP unless meaningful reforms, including stronger warrant requirements and professional law enforcement standards, in an attempt to rein in aggressive conduct that has resulted in multiple deaths, including of U.S. citizens. Those efforts failed.

The result is a proposal that could fund ICE and CBP for years to come, with no meaningful congressional oversight. All of this funding would be available to the agencies through the end of fiscal year 2029.

What’s in the bill?

The proposal allocates $72 billion in new funding with nearly all of it going to immigration enforcement. It includes:

• ICE: $38.2 billion to expand and sustain enforcement operations by hiring and equipping personnel across its divisions, supporting detention and removal transportation, upgrading technology and facilities, and expanding 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement. $7.5 billion of this funding is specifically earmarked for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations for “non-immigration” purposes.
• CBP: $26 billion to hire and equip personnel, upgrade surveillance and inspection technologies, conduct screenings of unaccompanied children, and support DHS’ border enforcement mission.
• DHS: $5 billion to fund several broad purposes, including those related to the Homeland Security and Judiciary portions of the reconciliation bill passed last year, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). In OBBBA, DHS received a similar pot of money—often referred to as a “slush” fund given its broad purpose—of $10 billion. DHS has used those funds in legally suspect ways, including to cover DHS employees’ salaries during the government shutdown.
• Department of Justice (DOJ): $1.5 billion for a variety of purposes, including enforcing and administering federal immigration laws under the DOJ’s authority.

How does this compare to previous ICE and CBP budgets?

ICE and CBP are already among the most highly-funded law enforcement agencies in the federal government. In recent years, Congress has increased funding to both agencies through its annual appropriations process at the expense of agencies that process immigration benefits. Nevertheless, this proposal, especially combined with last year’s reconciliation bill, represents a historically high increase in immigration enforcement funding.

The proposal is nearly four times ICE’s annual budget from FY 2025. Combined with the $75 billion ICE already received last year through OBBBA, the agency will have received over eleven times its 2025 budget. While the funds can be used through 2029, the Congressional Budget Office notes that there is considerable uncertainty over the pace of spending given the lack of guardrails on when the money can be spent. 

This is a big concern, as ICE received $45 billion for detention through OBBBA to be used through 2029 but instead decided to use the overwhelming majority ($38 billion) of it immediately to convert warehouses into immigration detention centers. At a recent conference in Arizona, a DHS official in charge of spending funding from OBBBA said that the agency was on track to “obligate 75% of the funds” by the end of September this year.

Similarly, CBP, which would receive funding for its border operations in this proposal, would receive 3.5 times its 2025 budget. Again, this funding is available until 2029, but there are no proposed constraints on it being used sooner.

In addition, DHS would receive $5 billion beyond its annually appropriated amount to fund broad categories of priorities, including immigration-related provisions of last year’s OBBBA. The administration has so far been able to rely on its own interpretations when deciding how to use similar funds provided under the OBBBA.

What makes this particularly concerning is not just the amount—but the structure. By using the reconciliation process, Congress would effectively provide multi-year, lump-sum funding with fewer mechanisms for oversight or course correction. In contrast, the annual appropriations process allows lawmakers to revisit funding levels each year, adjust priorities, and impose conditions on how funds are spent.

What’s being foregone to fund immigration enforcement at these levels?

The tradeoffs here are significant. By channeling such a large share of federal resources into immigration enforcement—through a process that minimizes oversight—congressional leaders are also choosing not to invest those funds elsewhere.

In April, the Trump administration submitted its funding priorities for FY 2027. While lawmakers are considering giving billions more to ICE and CBP, the White House has proposed massive cuts to essential domestic programs. $70 billion could instead fund:

• Biomedical research for 4 years
• Student higher education grants for 5 years
• Energy assistance for low-income households (LIHEAP) for 6 years.
• Job Corps, a workforce development program, for 14 years
• Pre-school development grants for 73 years
• Rural health programs for 242 years

Instead, taxpayer dollars are being directed away from helping people meet basic needs and toward further expanding immigration enforcement infrastructure.

What does this mean for the future of immigration enforcement funding?

This isn’t just a debate about funding levels—it’s a debate about Congress’ priorities. Reconciliation was never designed to serve as the primary vehicle for shaping complex, long-term policy in areas like immigration enforcement. Unlike the traditional government funding process, reconciliation lacks many of the guardrails that require agencies to report their activity, provide members of Congress access to detention facilities, or operate certain programs.

Should Congress commit $70 billion to expand federal enforcement capacity with fewer checks, fewer reporting requirements, and less flexibility to respond to changing conditions? That’s the choice this bill presents.

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill during the third week of May.

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Dear Immigrant: Money Will Surprise You

Letter 05

Re: Money Will Surprise You

Dear Immigrant,

The salary looks large until you learn what it costs to live inside it. This is the most common financial shock of immigration and it is almost universally underestimated, because the people who told you about the salary told you the number without telling you what the number becomes after the country takes its share.

Tax will take approximately twenty to thirty percent depending on your bracket and your location. Rent will take thirty to forty percent of what remains. Transport, food, utilities, insurance, phone — these costs are not optional and they are higher than you expect. What remains after these fixed costs, in most immigrant stories I know, is smaller than the person imagined when they made the decision to come.

The financial shock is not a reason not to come. It is a reason to arrive with accurate information rather than the number on the job offer. The number on the job offer is not your money. It is the starting point of a subtraction problem. Know what the answer to that problem is before you commit to a lifestyle that assumes the starting number.

Build a budget in the first week. Not a theoretical budget — an actual one, based on the actual costs of the actual place you have arrived in. Find out what rent costs in your area. Find out what the tax rate is. Find out what a monthly transit pass costs. Add these up. What remains is what you have to work with. Plan from that number, not from the number on the offer letter.

Send money home only after you have covered your own costs. This sounds obvious and it is one of the most violated principles in immigrant financial life. You cannot fund two households on an entry-level salary. Decide what you can send, set it as a fixed amount, and hold it steady. The people back home will adjust their expectations if you set them clearly and early.

Financial discipline in the first two years determines the trajectory of the next ten. This is the part that feels like restriction. It is actually construction.

From someone who learned this the expensive way,
A former immigrant

dearimmigrant.com

◆ YEAR IN KENYA SERIES

This essay is part of the Year in Kenya series — twelve months in Nairobi, April 2025 to April 2026.

The analytical home for the series is gabrielmahia.com, where Gabriel writes on power, institutions, and what holds under pressure. The full reading order — essays across five properties — is at the Year in Kenya series page.

Read the Series →gabrielmahia.com

Dear Immigrant: I Went Back for a Year

Dear Immigrant,

I went back. Not to stay — to wait. My wife needed the a spousal visa, and the process required one of us to be in Kenya while it moved through the system.

I landed in Nairobi on April 15, 2025. I had been in America for fifteen years. Fourteen of those years I called myself a Kenyan immigrant in America. This year I was something else — an American in Kenya, or something in between.

What I want to tell you is this: the country you came from is not static. It moved while you were away. Kenya's Gen Z has built a political consciousness in the last two years that I did not leave with. The infrastructure of Nairobi is different — there are expressways now, better connections, more high-rises in what were once open lots.

But the cost of living increased faster than any of the infrastructure. The debt crisis that the Finance Bill was trying to address is real. The youth who marched against it were right that the solution being proposed would hurt them. They were also right that the institution was not listening.

You will go back someday. The country you went back to will not be the one you left.

Gabriel

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Gabriel Mahia writes from the intersection of U.S. federal infrastructure and East African operational reality. This essay is part of a series written after twelve months in Kenya, April 2025 – April 2026.

◆ YEAR IN KENYA SERIES

This essay is part of the Year in Kenya series — twelve months in Nairobi, April 2025 to April 2026.

The analytical home for the series is gabrielmahia.com, where Gabriel writes on power, institutions, and what holds under pressure. The full reading order — essays across five properties — is at the Year in Kenya series page.

Read the Series →gabrielmahia.com