CHICAGO – Texas faced a workforce shortage in its restaurant industry even before the Trump administration escalated immigration enforcement, Emily Williams Knight, president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, said during a panel discussion at the National Restaurant Association Show this week.
But the harsh immigration enforcement of the Trump administration’s immigration policies have worsened the labor market for restaurants.
“If we take a lot of our long-term skilled labor, and either they're afraid to come to work or they can no longer come to work, that's going to disrupt the restaurant's ability to work at capacity and generate revenue,” Williams Knight said.
The National Restaurant Association wants to protect the existing workforce, make it easier for more workers to get visas, and build an immigration system that can address major demographic problems in the workforce. The association outlined a set of principles, published in April, which outline these desired outcomes for immigration reform.
Achieving these goals has long seemed like a pipedream, but Williams Knight and others say that politics focused on affordability and prices could raise pressure on otherwise inflexible legislators.
Other industries have bespoke visa programs tailored to their labor needs — but not restaurants. The NRA is pushing to alter that, calling for new visas for low-margin industries like foodservice and hospitality, Aaron Frazier, vice president of public policy at the NRA, said during a panel.
“We have really great work visas for like professional athletes to come here and play, like we should be able to also look at those seasonal work visas for the second biggest private sector employer,” Frazier said.
Fear keeps workers and consumers at home
Many consumers in Texas are reluctant to go out as a result of increased immigration enforcement, which has worsened consumer spending — a phenomenon significant enough to be visible in the earnings of public companies, like Jack in the Box.
The same phenomenon has been seen in Chicago, according to Kevin Vaughan, owner of Chicago-based Vaughan Hospitality Group. Vaughan also served as the chairman of the Illinois Restaurant Association in 2023, and spoke during the panel.
Vaughan, who was an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. for several years in his teens, said harsh enforcement has hurt restaurant traffic. Chicago has been a particular target of the Trump administration under Operation Midway Blitz, a radicalization of enforcement that began last year.
Restaurants in Chicago neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations saw sales fall between 30% and 50% during the worst parts of the operation, Vaughan said, while restaurants all across the city felt the impact on their hourly workers.
“People are scared going to work, they're scared going home from work, and the reality is I need these people. They're the core — the backbone — of my business, and without them I can't survive,” Vaughan said.
The strain on immigrant workers and reductions in that workforce has exacerbated longstanding, structural shortages in the restaurant industry, Aaron Frazier, vice president of public policy at the NRA, said during the panel.
“When you see over 900,000 unfilled jobs in restaurants and hospitality you know there's a big issue. It's just that people aren't coming to apply for those jobs,” Frazier said.
Williams Knight said the shortage of immigrant workers predates the Trump administration, arising from an immigration system that has seen little reform since the Reagan administration.
An affordability framing could shift political pressures
The continued increases in prices, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s tariff policies and the war against Iran, has made any economic issue that touches on food prices a point of potential leverage.
Affordability is the top issue in most ongoing elections, Williams Knight said. One way to keep the cost of food from rising rapidly is to increase work authorizations for employees up and down the food supply chain, she said.
“When we sit with our lawmakers in Texas, in pure red districts, they are worried because affordability is such a crisis right now,” Williams Knight said.
Vaughan said it was important to keep political questions around immigrant workforce supply framed in business terms, rather than partisan ones.
“We have to make people aware that the restaurant industry cannot survive without immigrants,” Vaughan said.
Many operators aren’t having those conversations with each other, with their communities or with their employees, Vaughan said, which keeps the issue low-salience and prevents effective organizing.
“We're guilty of sticking our heads in the sand,” Vaughan said. “There will come a time, hopefully next year, that immigration will at least be talked about in Washington.”
Williams Knight said a degree of political courage was necessary to put the issue at the forefront. One stumbling block to reform is the reluctance of businesses to make clear policy asks on immigration, Williams Knight said. But the TRA has turned increases in the cost of food into conversations with Republican legislators in Texas.
“We just can't be afraid to say the I-word. Everyone is afraid, and we just can't be afraid,” Williams Knight said.
