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Know This Now, February 13, 2026: Dignity Act Endorsed by National Association of Manufacturers, Gaining Momentum with 8 Recent Cosponsors

By February 13, 2026February 17th, 2026No Comments

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s leading voice for the U.S. manufacturing industry, endorsed the Dignity Act this week, marking a major show of support from the business community for a serious, bipartisan immigration solution to strengthen the U.S. workforce and sustain economic growth. 

ABIC Action supports the Dignity Act and common-sense solutions that provide work permits for long-term, law-abiding immigrants and citizenship for Dreamers.

Manufacturing represents 10% of US GDP, but manufacturers across the country continue to face persistent labor shortages that threaten growth, productivity, and competitiveness.

“The reality is that we have over 400,000 jobs open at any given time, and to help our industry invest and expand our footprint here at home, we need more workers,”said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

“With the Dignity Act, Reps. Salazar and Escobar have offered actionable solutions…appropriately focusing our immigration priorities on a strong and secure border, a workable system of enforcement that respects the rule of law, and merit-based reforms that prioritize America’s economic interests,”

The Dignity Act continues to build momentum:

  • 39 Congressional cosponsors currently support the Dignity Act, and eight new bipartisan cosponsors signed on in just the last few weeks: Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY-1), Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28), Rep. Neal P. Dunn (R-FL-2), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-6), Rep. Jennifer A. Kiggans (R-VA-2), Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-3), Rep. Zachary Nunn (R-IA-3), Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-4) 
  • 60 national organizations currently back the legislation, making it the most widely endorsed immigration reform proposal in decades

    CTA BUTTON: Tell Congress to Support the Dignity Act 

More from the ABIC Network

WSJ: Immigration Raids in South Texas Are Starting to Hit the Economy

Mario Guerrero, CEO of the South Texas Builders Association and an ABIC member, was featured in a Wall Street Journal article highlighting how immigration raids in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley are causing severe economic damage to the construction industry and related businesses.

Detention center guards in the region also told the WSJ many detainees have valid work permits. As a result of the raids, residential construction activity has fallen 30% and a major concrete supplier saw demand drop 60% and filed for bankruptcy in December. A tile supplier reported $5.3 million in lost sales.

Daily Heard: Why the Dairy Workforce Crisis is a Threat to National Food Security
Industry leaders and experts at a recent IDFA Dairy Forum panel, including ABIC’s James O’Neill, described the U.S. dairy and agricultural sectors as operating with a workforce “in the shadows” due to inadequate immigration policies and ramped up enforcement. The instability is creating a threat to national food security and driving up costs for consumers:
“The primary driver of increased food cost is the increased cost of labor,” James O’Neill
Director of Legislative Affairs and Ag Workforce, ABIC

Produce farms use seasonal H-2A visas, but dairy farms require year-round labor with no legal pathway available.

“We need two high-level policies: a path to legal status for the current workforce and a viable year-round visa program for the future,” said Rick Naerebout of Idaho Dairymen’s Association.

The Bulwark: Why Trump’s Attack on Refugees Could Hurt Grandma

If Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 330,000 Haitians is revoked as planned, it could have ripple effects far beyond immigrant communities, especially in elder care. Immigrants make up 28% of the direct care workforce, and Haitians are a critical part of that labor pool.

Advocates warn that mass deportations would worsen existing caregiver shortages and raise costs:

“Nursing homes have very long waiting lists to get in—and with this, they are just going to get longer.” -Luis Zaldivar

Project Director, ABIC

While a federal judge has temporarily blocked the TPS rollback, the future remains uncertain, leaving both caregivers and the seniors who rely on them in limbo.


CBS Texas: How The U.S. Immigration Landscape Looks More Than a Year Into President Trump’s Second Term

ICE arrests in Texas rose 153% in 2025, and at the same time, a smaller share of those arrested are convicted criminals, and fewer than 14% had violent criminal charges or convictions, according to DHS data obtained by CBS News.

“I think there is still strong support for a secure border…President Trump has done that,” said Juan Carlos Cerda, Texas State Director for ABIC.

“People also recognize that the system is broken and that this mass deportation is a consequence of that decades-long lack of effort to fix the problem.” -Juan Carlos Cerda
Texas State Director, ABIC

Opinion:
NYTimes Opinion: What Replaces Deported Immigrant Workers? Not Americans.

Binyamin Appelbaum, lead writer on economics and business for the New York Times editorial board, argues that deporting immigrant workers won’t lead to more American jobs. Instead, employers are turning to automation or shifting production to other countries. He cites a farmer who summarized the issue this way:
If American farms cannot import labor from other countries, Americans will have to import the fruit of that labor instead.

Past efforts to recruit unemployed Americans into farm work have largely failed, even at higher wages. Mass deportations are more likely to accelerate automation and reduce domestic production than to create new opportunities for American workers.

News Briefing:

Minnesota Immigration Crackdown is Ending, Homan Says

Border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that the federal immigration surge in Minnesota that led to mass detentions and two fatal shootings by ICE officers is winding down. Launched Dec. 1 as “Operation Metro Surge,” the effort led to more than 4,000 arrests in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area.

The Trump administration has called those arrested “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” but many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained, the AP reported.

Minnesota businesses have suffered major losses during the federal immigration enforcement operation, with individual businesses losing thousands of dollars a day, and the city of Minneapolis estimating it’s losing $10 million to $20 million in revenue each week.

Slowing U.S. Population Growth Could Reduce GDP by $100 Billion in 2026, Analysis Finds

Economic forecasting firm Implan estimates that slower U.S. population growth could shrink GDP by $104 billion in 2026 compared to prior growth trends.

In 2025, the U.S. added 1.8 million new residents, down from 3.2 million the year before, creating a “growth gap” of 1.4 million people. U.S. population growth has been slowing for decades due to low birth rates, but immigration sharply dropped during the first year of the Trump administration. According to the report, those missing workers and consumers would have generated $86 billion in additional household spending and supported more than 740,000 jobs.

A recent report by Iowa Public Radio ‘Iowa relies on immigrants to grow. Trump policies are slowing new arrivals,’ emphasized what’s at stake for rural communities when population growth nosedives.

Iowa’s recent population growth has depended overwhelmingly on immigration, with more than 90% of growth between 2020 and 2025 tied to international arrivals. 

“It’s addressed workforce shortages that we have all across the state…immigrants come in, and they buy homes, they spend their money in the community, they keep the schools running, it keeps the state revenues relatively robust,” said David Peters, an agricultural and rural policy professor at Iowa State University

But after a year of Trump administration enforcement policies, new international arrivals to Iowa have dropped by roughly half, pushing the state toward a demographic “cliff,” and threatening rural economies that are already struggling to find workers.

Google Workers Demand End to Cloud Services for Immigration Agencies

More than 800 Google employees delivered a petition to management demanding transparency about how the company’s technology supports federal immigration agencies and urging Google to stop doing business with those organizations. The petition, which received 500 signatures in 24 hours, condemned the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and “paramilitary-style raids,” citing a recent fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis.

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