Sam Sanchez, a Chicago-based restaurateur, hadn’t planned to get involved in politics until he realized that his voice was a platform that many of his undocumented employees didn’t have.
When recently arrived migrants from mostly Venezuela received expedited work permits from the Biden administration, he noticed the anger and disappointment that some of his undocumented workers from Mexico — who had been in the country for decades — felt.
“A lot of the people that are struggling and who have been waiting for a job permit for years got passed over and it made a lot of people mad. There’s a lot of resentment and I see my employees struggle,“ said Sanchez, who owns Moe’s Cantina and other Chicago restaurants and is on the board of the National Restaurant Association.
So Sanchez headed to the White House to advocate for them. “All we wanted was job permits,” he said. But that didn’t happen. As a result, Sanchez and other like-minded Latinos backed a different choice in November’s election and gave their support, and votes, to Donald Trump despite the threats of mass deportations. They blame the Democratic Party for failing to provide a comprehensive immigration reform, which has been in debate by both political parties for decades.
Now, he and other Mexican American and Latino business leaders across the nation who support Trump are forming a coalition focused on advocating for bipartisan immigration reform, prioritizing border security, and providing legal status for law-abiding “Dreamers,” young adults brought to the country as children, and long-term undocumented workers in all industries.
Sanchez said that the Comité de 100, as the group is called, had been in the works since before the election. It is an organization made up of both Democrat and Republican Latino and Mexican American-owned businesses. They represent agriculture, hospitality, construction and health care, industries that depend on immigrant laborers, and are determined to work with the incoming Republican-majority Congress to reach a deal.
While activists and political leaders in the Chicago area have centered the conversation on how to protect the undocumented community from potential mass deportations, the business leaders intend to instead work with the new administration toward legalizing those who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protection and then their parents.
“Not working with the federal government is not an option because we don’t want them (immigration authorities) knocking on doors. If they have to knock on doors, they’re going to take grandma and grandpa also, which we don’t want,“ said Sanchez, who met with Tom Homan on his visit to Chicago in December, in which the so-called border czar said that Chicago would be an epicenter for a mass deportation targeting violent criminals.
But Comité de 100, mostly made up of Mexican American business owners, will advocate for a pathway to legalization for long-standing members of the Mexican immigrant community. They say they are at the highest risk of being deported despite the many who have built lives here, including having citizen children and becoming an essential part of the workforce, said Lou Sandoval, CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.
Mexicans make up more than 60% of Latinos in the U.S., and are the heart of the construction, hospitality and manufacturing industries, even without being lawfully allowed to work in the country. Other countries, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba, have access to other programs like Temporary Protected Status.
“Our contributions have been completely overlooked,” said Sandoval, whose grandfather was part of the Bracero program, a government-sponsored agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to temporarily work in the U.S. from 1942 to 1964.
Research shows that undocumented Mexican immigrants pay $42.6 billion in taxes, often with an individual taxpayer identification number, but receive no public benefits. The Latino GDP is $3.6 trillion, with Mexican Americans contributing $2.16 trillion — 60% of that total, said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
“ABIC employers are thrilled about the launch of Comité 100, a new platform giving a much-needed voice to Mexican business leaders, entrepreneurs, and workers who power industries like landscaping, hospitality, construction, manufacturing and agriculture,” Shi said.
“For the first time, they’re calling on President Trump to deliver for these hardworking, long-term contributors. The momentum is real, and change is coming.”
George Carillo, the CEO of Hispanic Constriction Council, based in Oregon, considers the returning Trump administration an opportunity to shape the future of the country.
“For the first time in history, Hispanics were the deciding force in an election, and the people have chosen Trump. This is his moment to lead a new generation of leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals who can rise above political division and build a stronger future for all Americans,” Carillo said.
In Chicago, the Republican president-elect had significant gains in predominantly Mexican American communities.
In precincts within Little Village, the support for Trump appeared to have more than doubled — from 13% in 2020 to 32% in 2024, according to an analysis of unofficial results. That type of swing mirrors national data that suggests the Latino vote helped Trump get into office despite his use of rhetoric during the campaign that his opponents decried as racist and anti-immigrant.
Carillo, who was born and raised in Chicago, said the support for Trump, from many Latinos who perhaps live in mixed-status families, is telling of what longtime undocumented people want.
The group is asking Congress to pass initiatives such as the Dignity Act and the Laken Riley Act, which it believes could balance the need for secure borders with pathways that allow essential immigrant workers and families to stay in the country legally. But pro-immigrant advocates say the policy would diminish access to due process for undocumented immigrants, minors and DACA recipients, and that it would further criminalize the community for minor crimes.
They also want to advocate for the creation of a voluntary departure program.
“This program would provide vital social support in countries of origin, giving families the dignity to prepare for departure while keeping the door open for the possibility of lawful future return,” Carillo said.
Sandoval said he has employed workers who are undocumented and has sponsored their work visas, sometimes even paying for it himself. “But even that system is broken,” he said, pointing out that some of his workers are still waiting while migrants received their work permit within months.
“I think this provides a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves and I would say from having spoken with some politicians in Washington, they recognize the generational shift that has occurred in the Latino community with their voting habits since the last election,” said Sandoval, who hosted two listening groups, one in Little Village and one in Chinatown, before the election.
Both groups agreed that they were “tired of being brutalized, the cost of labor had gone up, they didn’t feel they were being listened to by the Democrats and they didn’t see a pathway to any resolution for them,” he said.
Although Sanchez and many of the other business leaders also sense the fear that some of his employees feel at the threats of deportation, “they are also tired of unfulfilled promises by Democrats,” Sanchez said. His way to ensure they will have a chance to lawfully stay in the country and continue working at his restaurant is by helping to spearhead this movement, he said.
“I have to take this on, and believe it or not, it is not an easy thing to do because being a registered Democrat for the past 43 years in the city of Chicago, I’m putting a target on my back, going to D.C. to work with the Republican Party. But I don’t have a choice,” Sanchez said. “The Republican Party has control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency, and now with listening to this mass deportation and all my employees and family friends that are scared.”
