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SANDY — From more than $5 billion a year in earnings to contributing 1 in 13 tax dollars paid by Utah residents, immigrants play a key role as taxpayers and consumers, says new a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy released Wednesday.
The partnership, based in New York City, released 50 state-level reports as part of a day of action to launch its Reason for Reform campaign, which brings together business, civic and cultural leaders to urge Congress to take action on immigration reform.
The estimated 250,000 immigrants living in Utah "serve as everything from livestock workers to entrepreneurs, making critical contributors to Utah's economic success overall" the Utah report states.
Specifically, 13,280 immigrants in Utah are self-employed. Businesses owned by immigrants generated more than $248 million in income and employed 31,224 people in the Beehive State in 2014.
Recent national studies found that immigrants own more than half of the grocery stores in the United States and nearly half of the nation's nail salons.
"Foreign-born entrepreneurs are also behind 51 percent of our country's billion-dollar startups. More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 firms have at least one founder who was an immigrant or the children of immigrants," the report said.
"It is important that Utah attracts and retains the world's top innovators and entrepreneurs. Currently, Utah has a very vibrant and growing technology community that needs high-skilled workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math," said Stan Parrish, president and CEO of the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce.
Parrish was among a group of business, faith and civic leaders who joined in a roundtable discussion Wednesday at the offices of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation that coincided with release of "The Contributions of New Americans in Utah."
The report shows the state's foreign-born population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2014, the immigrant population grew by nearly 21,000 people.
"This meant that the state saw its foreign-born population swell in size by 9 percent — or at a far greater rate than the number of foreign-born residents increased in the country as a whole," according to the report.
The report says immigrants "punch above their weight class" as entrepreneurs.
"Foreign-born workers currently make up 11.1 percent of all entrepreneurs in the state, despite being just 8.6 percent of Utah's population," the report says.
Immigrants, both those who enter the country by legal means and those unauthorized to work and live in the United States, contribute to the state in many ways, the report noted.
Paul Mero, president and CEO of the education and public policy group Next Generation Freedom Fund, said he believes the New American Economy study is valuable because it helps dispel negative stereotypes.
"It actually confirms research I've been a part of here in Utah," Mero said.
That research on immigrants, conducted five years ago while Mero was president of the Sutherland Institute, found that "their values, their ethics are more Utah than Utahns.
"They’re more LDS than the LDS. They marry more. They divorce less. They have more children. They work harder, longer."
Jake Harward, owner of Harward Farms based in Springville, said farmers live with many variables, such as weather and other factors that can affect their yields. The availability of labor and changes in agriculture worker visas should not be among those variables, he said.
Utah farmers need farm workers' labors, but they also recognize they are people who have lives and aspirations, Harward said.
"These workers are family. We know their families. We've been to Mexico to visit them and spent time with them. We need them here," he said.
Stan Lockhart of IM Flash Technologies and a member of the Utah State Board of Education, said the primary problem of sustaining the state's and nation's economic growth and encouraging entrepreneurship is the nation's broken immigration system.
"The idea that we have people that go outside the current system is just the logical outgrowth of a broken system, something that doesn't work. When you can apply for a visa and over the course of your lifetime not be granted that visa for no good reason, the system's broken," he said.
Lockhart said his experience working in Utah's tech sector for 30 years taught him that "immigrants don't take jobs, they help create jobs."
The report highlights Jorge Fierro's "new American" story, which could have been ripped from the pages of a Horatio Alger novel.
Except that Fierro's American dream story starts in a law school in Mexico. Fierro, then a 24-year-old student, realized that the only reason he was in law school was to please his parents. So he dropped out and moved to the United States — alone, with no money and knowing little English.
"I literally gave up my life for the American dream," Fierro is quoted the report.
After crossing the border in Texas, he landed in Rawlins, Wyoming, where he worked as a sheep herder, in construction and as a dishwasher. At the end of one his dishwashing shifts, Fierro made himself a burrito using a can of refried beans. He was struck by the poor quality of the beans and decided on the spot to start a food business.
What started as selling beans and salsa at farmers markets eventually evolved into a product line sold in grocery stores, a restaurant and thriving catering business.
Today, Rico Brands, based in Salt Lake City, employs 80 people and earns revenues of more than $3 million a year. Fierro, a naturalized U.S. citizen, supports immigration reform because "the economy in America demands more labor and demands more people."
The Rev. Steve Klemz, pastor of Salt Lake's Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, said he loves serving in Utah because of the interfaith sensibility that "hospitality is at the core of what we're all about in terms of welcoming and accepting people."
Faith leaders have the opportunity to serve as the "moral compass" in the debate over immigration reform, he said during Wednesday's roundtable.
"I often would say the opposite of faith is not doubt, but it’s fear," Rev. Klemz said. "If you live in fear, life becomes incredibly constricted. 'This is my turf, my area, my country, my wall.'"
The end result is people become anxious and unable to see possibilities, he said.
"I want to thank you for this report that puts facts forward and begins to reframe the question so it doesn't have to do with fear of swarms or bacteria or all the dehumanizing ways that immigration is often portrayed. It's about faith, possibilities and people," Rev. Klemz said.
