national coalition supporting work permits<\/a> for long-term, vetted immigrant workers.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re at a critical point right now,\u201d said Emily Williams Knight, CEO and president of the Texas Restaurant Association. \u201cWe need this in Texas. We\u2019ve got to have food prices come down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Association data shows 42% of restaurants nationwide were not profitable last year. In Texas, that number rises to 50%.<\/p>\n
Polling also found 66% of Texas restaurant operators reported negative impacts from immigration enforcement, including declining sales, difficulty hiring and employees not showing up for work.<\/p>\n
\u201c[President Trump] has said \u2018We know it\u2019s an economic issue.\u2019 We\u2019ve secured the border. Now it\u2019s time to get permits for these longtime employees that make up a great part of our population in Texas,\u201d Williams Knight said.<\/p>\n
Sam Lash, director and co-founder of Austin-based wholesaler Farm to Table, said farming in Texas has become increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for is an easier path for people to come and people to feel valued,\u201d Lash said. \u201cIf we can stabilize our farming network with reliable, consistent quality labor our food system becomes stronger. It becomes more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams Knight said the proposal does not include amnesty or citizenship and believes work permits could offer a bipartisan solution.<\/p>\n
“We want all Texans to get behind that, to realize that these folks really are a very critical piece of making sure that all Texans can eat each day,” Williams Knight said.<\/p>\n
Back at the family-owned restaurant, Cruz said she believes work permits could help stabilize the industry.<\/p>\n
She has resisted raising prices to avoid driving away customers.<\/p>\n
Instead, she said, the business has relied on savings.<\/p>\n
“In order to keep the doors open and actually keep the business running,” Cruz said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top leaders in the Texas food industry say the sector has reached a critical point. Citing rising costs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3613,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-199072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-food-drink","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}