‘We’re short about a million workers’: Rebecca Shi on immigration’s economic toll

As the Trump administration ramps up mass deportations, impacting businesses across numerous sectors, the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC) is advocating for policy reform. Rebecca Shi leads the organization that’s made up of 1,400 current and former CEOs, trade group leaders, and others who rely heavily on an immigrant workforce. She shares how uncertainty over immigration has disrupted daily business and affected the bottom line, while also expressing optimism that this moment could lead to some long-needed changes in U.S. immigration policy.

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Bob Safian, the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

This country’s relationship with immigration is so complicated because, of course, we all came here as immigrants at different times in different ways, and it’s been a great advantage to the businesses and the economy of the U.S. to have sort of fresh, young talent be part of it. And yet there’s also this anxiety, this fear that new people are going to take away what we have. How do you square that—those two different sides of this?

If you look at history, the last time that our immigration levels pushed 15% to 19% was in the 1910s. And around that time, also, there was huge backlash, and the economy wasn’t doing well. And so then the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. And for nearly 50, 60 years, up until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there was almost zero immigration. So that number of foreign-born [residents] was reduced to about 3% to 4%. And we kind of experienced the same thing these last few years when, for the first time, our foreign-born population pushed up to 18% to 19%. And we are experiencing a similar backlash. 

But again, we are in the economy of 2025 and no longer in 1965. So we really should have a different response. We saw the jobs report last week, and the job growth in July is 74,000. And nearly all economists say that we need at least 100,000 jobs created in order just to keep this economy moving.

And the main reason is because we’re short about a million workers over the last four months—people who have either been detained or deported, or people who fear being sent to a different country and have self-deported. And so it is something that we’re going to have to deal with head-on, but I think we’re encouraged by what the president has said recently, and he’s a businessman. He knows what the workforce requires, and to your point, the hunger of immigrants and those foreign-born is necessary for any company or any economy to be fully competitive.

In all the news about immigration raids, we don’t hear very much about employers facing consequences for hiring people without proper documentation. Why is that? Might that change with more onus being put on businesses?

I think you’re starting to see that change. So there was that large raid at a meat processing plant in Nebraska, and that meat processor actually was E-Verify compliant. He did E-Verify, and ICE came and detained and removed about 90 workers. And his response, and he is right, is that this E-Verify system is a really flawed system. Sometimes it will mistake people’s names, catch people who are U.S citizens, or just completely misidentify people.

It’s important to recognize that one of the key reasons—drivers of why immigrants are in this country—is because somebody gave them a job. And so it is one of the reasons why our coalition and our employers have really taken upon themselves to really push for a solution so that they can come out of the shadows and work legally. And that’s actually good and protects every American worker when we don’t have a second-class system. When we don’t have an easily exploitable group of people because they’re in the shadows and living in fear, you ensure that their rights and wages are protected, not just for them, but for every American worker as well.

I mean ABIC came together looking for a lasting long-term reform to immigration policy. And I wonder, is that possible in an environment that’s so charged? And I know you’re optimistic about it, but why is this all so hard?

I think it’s hard because it’s easy to play up the fears and it’s easy to blame, to point fingers. But I think at the same time, the majority of Americans do believe in steps forward and especially for people who have been here and have earned that legal status—that the everyday American is a lot smarter than the professional politicians, that they don’t need all or nothing. Something like a legal work permit, like the president has said, is something that’s broadly supported. And then I think the other piece is just that politicians, for some of them, have to run every two years. And so it’s very easy to run and add, calling something amnesty even when it isn’t to try to score cheap political points.

So what’s at stake from here for businesses? For all of us?

A lot of research has been done about this enforcement-only approach, this removal, say up to a million people a year, and what it can cost the economy. It’s ahead of $350 billion. It’s about up to 3 1/2 percentage in terms of job and GDP. It can also translate to up to 2.5 million job losses for American workers. The work that immigrants do, and Americans do, tends to be complementary. Immigrants are, say, milking a dairy cow while American workers are the foremen or the managers of the farm. In a restaurant, the immigrants are the busboys or they’re washing the dishes, and Americans prefer roles at the front of the house in terms of waitressing or hosting or bartending.

And so then when you remove that back of the house where there isn’t sufficient labor in the back of the house, that impacts the work of everyday Americans. And then the other thing is just inflationary and food prices. We had a dairy farmer in Wisconsin who talked to his neighbors about how, if they continue down this road, are they willing to pay $30 for a gallon of milk? Or even worse, are we okay with milk not being domestically produced and having to be imported? So I think that those are some of the consequences that we might face.

The pendulum on things like immigration tends to swing from one end to the other. And certainly during the Biden administration, maybe the doors were open too much, and maybe the doors are closed too much now. Where do you feel like the pendulum is right now?

I think it’s swung the other way. And I think Americans, like the latest Gallup poll shows, welcome immigrants and find immigration more favorable, at 79%. Which is the highest since the pandemic, since we called immigrant workers essential because, when the rest of us could quarantine safely, they were still working and picking crops. So yeah, I think the American attitude is definitely a reaction to the current more-restrictive policies. And I think that bodes well, too, for solutions that give some cover and support for particularly Republicans and the administration to move forward, especially if they want to keep power in 2026.

And so you’re not relying on the Democrats retaking power to be able to get these changes through.

Well, in the last 20-some years I’ve been at this, Democrats have had full control of both chambers and the White House three times, and nothing was done. And same with Republicans, right? Also, Republicans have had their chance to get something done, and we haven’t, and we see this president having just incredible influence over the Congress. And so I think employers will keep pushing.