Minnesota’s corporate silence on ICE surge
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Minnesota likes to think of itself as a place where big companies don’t just coin money — they make a difference in local society and culture.
The embrace of capitalism with a conscience has had an unusually large impact since Minnesota is home to a large number of brand name headquarters, especially considering its small size. To name a few: 3M. Target. Best Buy. General Mills. UnitedHealth Group. Ecolab. Hormel.
For decades, executives at these firms have been part of the state’s civic backbone — serving on nonprofit boards, weighing in on workforce issues, joining task forces focused on solving major social issues and tapping into their corporate foundations and personal pockets to financially support community initiatives.
Corporate leadership, at least here, made a difference. Which is why the quiet right now is so striking.
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The Trump administration has launched a concerted effort at mass deportations nationwide, and Minnesota is its main sphere of operation for now. The state is feeling economic stress and social strain from a massive operation that includes more than 2,000 federal agents and more on their way.
Local businesses in the Twin Cities, Rochester, St. Cloud and elsewhere report fewer customers. Employers say some workers are too afraid to come to their shifts. Tension in the Twin Cities ratcheted even higher after the killing of Renee Macklin Good last week, an event that deepened anxiety in already rattled communities.
A notable silence
Big business timidity is wrong in this troubling moment, said R.T. Rybak, who is currently head of the Minneapolis Foundation and formerly mayor of Minneapolis.
“I believe, frankly, it's morally wrong to allow innocent people to be taken but it is also very bad for our economy,” he said. “And I think most business leaders know this, and honestly, very few are saying anything.”
The lack of public protest by leading business executives, he added, could undermine with time the national and global competitiveness of Minnesota’s major companies. These global companies have benefited from getting their talent from diverse communities and cultures.
Every wave of innovation in the state that led to the creation of globally competitive companies has been “fueled by immigrants,” said Rybak. “Immigration is essential to our business community. And the lack of voice right now, I think, is deafening. I understand the threat, but the bigger threat is silence.”
There have been some statements. But they read procedural rather than engaged. For instance, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce issued a statement to MPR from Doug Loon, its CEO and president, saying it’s providing employers with “up-to-date information and resources to help them navigate uncertainty, maintain compliance with federal law and support their employees.”
Not everyone has been silent, either. For example, Beth Ford, chief executive officer at the agriculture cooperative behemoth Land O’Lakes, has recently advocated for policies that balance border security with an emphasis on how immigrants are vital to both the food supply and rural communities. Even though it's a farmer-owned cooperative and not publicly traded, Land O’ Lakes ranks as a Fortune 500 company.
“We support investment in border security at the same time we support immigration reform,” she told Fortune in October. “Immigration is central to the economic health and the growth of our economy and our businesses.”
We reached out to Ford for additional comment on the current immigration surge but did not hear back before the time of publication.
MPR News also reached out to several major companies with requests for comment but received no response from UnitedHealth, Best Buy, Ecolab, 3M, General Mills, U.S. Bancorp and Hormel. Target, at whose stores ICE agents have been patrolling store lots, also did not respond to a request for comment.
The loudest signal from corporate America may be what goes unsaid when it comes to immigration.
A turn from CEO activism
The silence marks a sharp turn away from what has been called the era of CEO activism in the 1990s and early 2000s. Prominent executives often styled themselves as global problem-solvers, eager to tackle poverty, climate change, inequality, even human rights.
The late Harvard University political scientist Samuel Huntington famously dubbed this mindset “Davos Man”—a multinational corporate elite confident that enlightened capitalism could bend history in the right direction. (The next Davos meeting in Switzerland starts next Monday and President Donald Trump will attend. The conference theme: "A Spirit of Dialogue".)
That era is over, at least for now. Today’s CEOs seem far less interested in saving the world than in surviving the many radical uncertainties, including tariffs, mass deportations, and geopolitical upheavals.
The U.S. political environment is volatile and can turn viciously personal. President Trump and his Administration are willing to single out companies for favorable and unfavorable treatment— through tariffs, antitrust threats, regulatory pressure, and social-media posts.
That said, economists, restaurateurs, construction firms, and many others have warned repeatedly about labor shortages and production bottlenecks from the immigration crackdown.
Small business owners struggling to keep the lights on have been willing to highlight the economic fallout from the mass deportation efforts in Minnesota.
“Almost eight weeks in a row [we’ve seen] decreased selling because of this fear. People don't want to go outside and buy stuff,” Wilber de la Rosa, owner of Tortillas La Mayzteca in Rochester, told MPR News.
Large companies aren’t immune to the disruptions. Immigration enforcement disrupts supply chains, empties production lines, and spreads fear far beyond the workers directly targeted by the Department of Homeland Security.
Possible ramifications for taking a stand
But executives could have concerns that if they forcefully and publicly raise objections about the scale and scope of the enforcement operation their company could find itself staving off political retaliation, regulatory scrutiny, or consumer boycotts (or some combination).
The example of Exxon chief executive officer Darren Woods could give executives pause.
During a recent meeting with oil company executives at the White House, Woods said that Venezuela is currently “uninvestable.” President Trump said he may stop Exxon Mobil from drilling in Venezuela. “I’ll probably be inclined to keep Exxon out,” Trump said to reporters with him aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening.
Another factor at work is that Minnesota’s leading companies are national and global corporations. Their reliance on the local economy is less than it was several decades ago.
“Instead of having as deep an involvement in the local community and having as much involvement in local issues, they now are thinking about the national scene and the international scene,” said Louis Johnston, professor of economics at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University.
“When you're looking at those kinds of things, it's better to keep quiet or to be as uncontroversial as possible and not take a side,” he said.
CEOs to some extent may be returning to an older approach.
During the divisive upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s — think Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement and more — public silence on social issues was the norm among the era’s organization men (and yes, they were mostly men).
Yet for a state that prides itself on a long history of ethical corporate leadership, the silence is notable.
