Testimony for the Record — Liz G. Sweet, MIRA Coalition — Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (April 29, 2026)

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Testimony for the record submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship for the hearing "American Entrepreneurship for 250 Years: Driving Innovation, Growth and Opportunity" on April 29, 2026 by Liz Sweet, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. The testimony addresses immigrants' contributions to small business growth. It cites analyses finding that immigrants generate some $130 billion of output annually for the Massachusetts economy and that 28% of business owners in Massachusetts are immigrants, compared with a national average of 21%. It gives historical examples of immigrant-founded businesses in Massachusetts and states that 58% of Fortune 500 firms based there were founded by at least one immigrant or child of immigrants.

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Testimony for the Record
Submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
For the Hearing: "American Entrepreneurship for 250 Years: Driving Innovation, Growth and
Opportunity”

April 29, 2026
Liz G. Sweet
MIRA Coalition
69 Canal Street, 3rd floor
Boston MA 02114

Dear Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Markey, and Members of the Committee,

Thank you for inviting me to participate in today's hearing. My name is Liz Sweet and I am the
Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition,
based in Boston Massachusetts. I appreciate the opportunity to submit this testimony regarding
the critical contributions immigrants have made to small business growth throughout our
nation’s history.

The Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition is the largest coalition in
New England advocating for the rights and integration of immigrants and refugees, who
number over one million in Massachusetts. Our coalition includes over 160 member
organizations, including community groups, community health centers, legal service providers,
refugee resettlement agencies, and a host of other organizations that provide direct services to
immigrants and refugees. MIRA Coalition’s mission is to convene, serve, and organize together
with our members, community leaders, and allies for the advancement of all immigrants across
the Commonwealth and beyond.

Our coalition focuses on advancing immigrant inclusion, especially economic inclusion.
Throughout our history, immigrants have contributed to our prosperity and economic growth, in
Massachusetts and nationally. Too often, new immigrants face barriers to full economic
inclusion, which often drives them towards greater creativity and adaptation in founding small
businesses to create their own opportunities. In one recent analysis by MassBudget, the
Immigration Research Initiative, and the Economic Policy Institute, they found that immigrants
generate some $130 billion of output annually for the Massachusetts economy.1 Currently in
Massachusetts, 28% of business owners are immigrants, which is higher than the national
average of 21%.2 Foreign-born workers make up one-fifth of our workforce in Massachusetts.

1
  Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, New Census Migration Data for 2023 – Modest Domestic Outmigration
Offset by Larger International Inflow.
2
  WBUR, Report: Immigrants contribute more than $100 billion annually to Greater Boston economy.
And, more than 91,000 immigrant entrepreneurs generate more than $3 billion in business
income.3 In Greater Boston, immigrants own 40% of our "Main Street" businesses, including
more than half of all restaurants, 61% of nail salons, and 86% of convenience stores.4 These
small businesses power our main streets, attracting people and resources to our cities and
towns.

Massachusetts has long had a powerful draw on newcomers to America. The earliest English
colonists came here, followed by the Irish escaping famine, who helped transform Boston into
an industrial city. The industrial wave brought large numbers of Italian, Russian, and Polish
immigrants. And then from the 1960s to the 1990s, Massachusetts was one of seven states that
as a group attracted between 60 to 75 percent of all the immigrants arriving in the United States
each year.5 These more recent waves of immigration have brought people from Asia, Latin
America, the Caribbean and Africa. And within each of these waves, immigrants have set up
businesses and contributed to our economic competitiveness.

Throughout our history, immigrants to Massachusetts have identified opportunities and opened
key businesses. For example, during the times of the whaling industry in southern
Massachusetts, large numbers of Cape Verdeans worked as whaling crew members and settled
in New Bedford, in southern Massachusetts. As whaling declined, enterprising Cape Verdeans
bought up old whaling vessels, and refitted them to become "packet ships." Between 1860 and
1965, 41% of the packets trading between New England and the Cape Verde Islands were
owned by Cape Verdeans, contributing to our trade and growth.

More recently, Max and Morris Feldberg immigrated to Massachusetts, fleeing Tsarist Russia in
the early 20th century. After settling in Chelsea, Massachusetts, they opened their first retail
store, which then grew to hundreds of stores by Max’s death in 1988. That is now the company
we know as TJX Companies, the Framingham-based Fortune 500 firm that owns TJ Maxx,
HomeGoods, and Marshalls. And 58% of the Fortune 500 firms based in Massachusetts were
founded by at least one immigrant or child of immigrants– Staples, Moderna, General Electric,
Thermo Fisher Scientific, Biogen, Wayfair, and Boston Scientific.6

And today in Massachusetts, we are home to a robust life sciences ecosystem, and a globally
innovative healthcare and biotechnology sector. This sector is also powered by immigrants, who

3
  American Immigration Council, Immigrants in Massachusetts,
https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/massachusetts/, accessed April 27, 2026
4
  Global Greater Boston: Immigrants in a Changing Region (February 14, 2024)
https://www.bostonindicators.org/global_boston
5
  New American Economy, The Contributions of New Americans in Massachusetts, August 2016.
6
  “Nearly Half of Fortune 500 Companies in 2025 Were Founded by Immigrants or Their Children.” American
Immigration Council,
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-2025/. Accessed
1 Mar. 2026.
account for 29.3% of STEM workers.7 Our research hospitals and biotech firms depend on new
immigrant labor and innovation.

Businesses founded and operated by immigrants not only drive our shared prosperity, but
ensure that we remain competitive in our changing global economy. Immigrants bring
creativity, adaptation, new ideas and innovation. Immigrant owned businesses add to our
culture, bringing new flavors, new products and new perspectives that enrich us all.

This is our American story, that waves of newcomers have arrived here, identified gaps and
opportunities, and have built new businesses to continue to grow our country into the
powerhouse that we are globally. Immigrant entrepreneurship is nothing new for
Massachusetts or this country, but it is an engine upon which we all rely and benefit, and we
must ensure that our country continues to be a place where entrepreneurs continue to flourish.




7
 American Immigration Council: Immigrants in Massachusetts
https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/massachusetts/#


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