Within the break up second earlier than the immigration agent tackled him, Goal worker Jonathan Aguilar Garcia darted through the entrance to his suburban Minneapolis retailer. He wrongly assumed he’d be secure in his personal office.
The agent pinned Aguilar Garcia to the ground with a knee on his neck earlier than shoving him and one other worker into an unmarked SUV. Hours later, they dumped out the lads — each U.S. residents — in a parking lot in a special suburb.
As brokers dragged Walmart employee Suban Noor from her automobile within the Minnesota city of Willmar, her shoes fell off, leaving the highschool scholar barefoot within the January chilly. Her Somali refugee household, in america legally, didn’t know the place she was till her launch 5 days later.
Immigration brokers have shot two DoorDash drivers within the final 12 months, killing one in Maine and wounding another in Minneapolis.
How have the chief executives of those and different main low-wage firms responded to the threats in opposition to their staff? Largely by trying the opposite means.
Additionally price noting: A few of the corporations which have quietly accepted the harassment of their staff are among the many “Low-Wage 100,” the Customary & Poor’s 500 firms with the bottom median pay. And the hole between median pay and CEO compensation was wider than common at among the companies whose workers have been ensnared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Walmart paid its CEO 958 times as a lot because the retailer’s median-paid employee in 2025. Goal’s pay hole: 794 to 1. DoorDash’s CEO enjoys billionaire standing whereas his drivers earn about $12.43 per hour.
In different phrases, these company leaders are really residing on an alternate financial planet. And which will clarify their silence whilst their very own staff are focused.
After immigration brokers killed two protesters in Minnesota, Goal and different regionally primarily based firms did signal an open letter urging “de-escalation of tensions.” However the letter didn’t straight denounce federal brokers’ violence, and Goal leaders have declined to comment on the therapy of their very own workers. When a pastor managed to get the retailer’s CEO on the cellphone throughout a religion chief sit-in at firm headquarters in January and the pastor raised the subject with him, he hung up on her.
Amongst different Low-Wage 100 CEOs, the general public response has been crickets. These firms have huge political energy, together with a mixed military of 1,282 registered federal lobbyists. However as an alternative of utilizing that energy to defend their workers, during the last 12 months they prioritized reforms for the wealthy — most notably the One Massive Stunning Invoice Act.
We reviewed statements about this 2025 finances laws from Low-Wage 100 companies and the company foyer teams that characterize them. Every of them jubilantly applauded the legislation’s tax cuts, which can overwhelmingly benefit CEOs and other wealthy Americans.
Not one expressed concern concerning the gutting of Medicaid and SNAP — public assistance programs on which tens of millions of low-wage workers rely — or the legislation’s practically $75 billion in elevated ICE funding.
The shredding of the protection web and ICE’s reign of terror are devastating for affected staff. They’re additionally unhealthy for enterprise. Low-wage service industries rely closely on immigrant labor, and staff are clearly extra productive once they have entry to healthcare and nutritious meals.
However for CEOs residing in distant monetary galaxies, it have to be subsequent to unattainable to fathom the concern of not with the ability to feed your loved ones, a lot much less the fear of being detained and unable to even go house to your loved ones.
Such excessive disparities make our nation weaker within the face of nationwide challenges, from the affordability disaster to threats in opposition to our primary rights.
We want authorities motion to each raise employee wages and pull high executives into the orbit of peculiar Individuals. Polls show sturdy assist throughout the political spectrum for doing so. One survey, as an example, discovered that 80% of possible voters favor a tax hike on firms that pay their CEOs greater than 50 occasions greater than their median pay.
Cracking down on extreme CEO pay have to be a part of any plan to unify and revive our troubled democracy.
Sarah Anderson directs the International Financial system Challenge and co-edits Inequality.org on the Institute for Coverage Research.
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Concepts expressed within the piece
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The article portrays a collection of current ICE encounters with staff at massive retail and supply corporations as proof of a sample of extreme and harmful enforcement that has swept up even U.S. residents and lawful residents, highlighting the detentions of Goal and Walmart workers in Minnesota and the taking pictures of DoorDash drivers as emblematic instances of abuse.
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It argues that company leaders at corporations resembling Goal, Walmart, and DoorDash have responded to those incidents with silence or obscure, oblique statements, noting that whereas Minnesota-based executives signed an open letter calling for “de-escalation of tensions,” the assertion didn’t explicitly criticize ICE or defend particular staff who have been detained or harmed, leaving affected workers feeling deserted.[8][10]
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The piece hyperlinks this lack of outspoken company advocacy to excessive CEO-to-median-worker pay gaps at low-wage companies, citing information on the “Low-Wage 100” S&P 500 corporations with the bottom median pay, the place common CEO compensation exceeds $17 million and pay ratios run into the lots of or 1000’s to 1, with Walmart and different massive retailers among the many companies posting among the widest disparities.[1][2][3][4][5]
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Drawing on these pay-gap figures, the article contends that CEOs at low-wage firms successfully dwell on a separate “financial planet,” which makes it troublesome for them to know the on a regular basis insecurity of staff who depend on packages like Medicaid and SNAP or who concern sudden detention, and thus helps clarify why executives haven’t used their political clout to confront ICE or defend frontline workers.[1][2][3]
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The article criticizes the political priorities of those firms, asserting that whereas they collectively deploy greater than a thousand federal lobbyists and have enthusiastically backed main tax-cut laws that disproportionately advantages rich people and enormous companies, they haven’t publicly opposed the identical legislation’s deep cuts to safety-net packages or its substantial improve in ICE funding, regardless of the direct impression on their very own low-wage workforce.[3]
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It emphasizes that the mixture of a weakened security web and aggressive immigration enforcement will not be solely devastating for staff and their households but additionally in the end unhealthy for enterprise, as a result of low-wage service industries rely closely on immigrant labor and are extra productive when workers can entry healthcare and satisfactory diet, some extent echoed by labor advocates and authorized teams urging employers to organize for and mitigate office immigration raids.[7][9][11]
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The piece argues that excessive pay inequality erodes social cohesion and weakens democracy, citing polling that exhibits sturdy bipartisan assist for insurance policies resembling tax penalties on firms whose CEOs earn greater than 50 occasions the pay of typical staff, and concludes that any severe effort to rebuild U.S. democracy and deal with affordability should each raise employee wages and curb extreme CEO compensation by means of authorities motion.[2][3][6]
Totally different views on the subject
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Some company responses spotlight steps they are saying have already been taken to handle worker issues, with Goal indicating that it has circulated info on private security and ICE-related protocols to retailer and company employees and its CEO delivering an inner video message stressing that management is doing every little thing inside company management to prioritize the protection of staff and prospects.[8]
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In public statements, executives at massive retailers resembling Goal and Dwelling Depot have harassed that they don’t coordinate with ICE and have urged there are authorized limits on how far corporations can go to maintain enforcement brokers away from shops and parking heaps, with a Dwelling Depot consultant stating that the corporate can’t intervene with enforcement businesses or forestall them from coming into retail premises.[8]
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Enterprise leaders and company advocates ceaselessly defend excessive government pay by emphasizing market competitors for high expertise, arguing that CEO compensation packages replicate the size of duty, shareholder expectations, and efficiency metrics at world corporations fairly than easy greed, and warning that aggressive caps on pay might push expert executives to rival companies or markets.
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Critics of insurance policies that might tax or penalize companies with very excessive CEO-worker pay ratios argue that such measures danger distorting labor and capital markets by intruding on private-sector pay choices, suggesting that present disclosure guidelines and shareholder oversight already present instruments to rein in compensation with out extra authorities intervention.
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Supporters of broad company tax cuts, together with these embedded in main finances laws, argue that lowering enterprise tax burdens is crucial for funding, innovation, and job creation, contending that decrease taxes improve U.S. competitiveness, in the end benefiting staff by means of expanded employment alternatives and potential wage features even when executives initially seize a big share of the monetary windfall.
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Advocates of strong immigration enforcement defend elevated funding for businesses like ICE as essential to uphold the rule of legislation and preserve public security, and preserve that whereas employers ought to guarantee staff know their rights and are handled pretty, corporations are obligated to adjust to lawful requests from federal brokers and can’t hinder enforcement actions, a stance mirrored in company feedback emphasizing noninterference with authorities operations.[8]
