Nearly Half of America’s Fortune 500 Companies Were Built by Immigrants or Their Children
The next time you use a search engine, stream a movie, or shop online, there is a good chance you are interacting with a company built wholly or in part by an immigrant or the child of one. According to research published by The Mendoza Law Firm with data from the American Immigration Council, 46.2% of Fortune 500 companies in 2025 were founded by immigrants or their children. These companies collectively generate trillions in annual revenue and employ millions of American workers. They are not footnotes to the American economic story. They are among its most defining chapters.
Mendoza Law’s study, Immigration Trends Shaping the American Dream, draws on data from multiple federal and industry sources to document the economic footprint of the United States’ immigrant population, a community of 51.9 million people that, as of mid-2025, represents approximately 15.4% of the total population and 19% of the entire U.S. workforce. That workforce figure alone is striking: nearly one in five American workers was born in another country. Their labor powers hospitals, technology firms, restaurants, construction sites, farms, and financial institutions from coast to coast.
But the economic contribution of immigrants extends far beyond employment. The entrepreneurial energy that immigrants bring to the U.S. economy is measurable, persistent, and disproportionate to their share of the population. Immigrant-founded businesses are not concentrated in a single industry or region, they span technology and manufacturing, food service and finance, healthcare and retail. They start businesses at higher rates than native-born Americans, hire local workers, generate tax revenue, and create the kind of durable economic activity that sustains communities over generations.
“Every day at Mendoza Law, we work with immigrants who are not waiting for permission to contribute to this country. They are already doing it — running businesses, employing people, paying taxes, and building the kind of generational wealth that is the foundation of the American Dream. Our job is to make sure the legal system keeps pace with the reality of their lives.”
The homeownership data reinforces this picture of economic integration. Among foreign-born households, 51% own their homes — a rate that reflects not just financial stability but long-term commitment to American communities. Between April 2024 and March 2025, foreign buyers concentrated their U.S. home purchases across a diverse range of states: Florida led with 21% of all foreign buyer activity, followed by California at 15%, Texas at 10%, New York at 7%, and Arizona at 5%. States like North Carolina, New Jersey, Michigan, Hawaii, and Illinois each accounted for approximately 3% of foreign buyer activity, illustrating how immigrant investment in American property, and by extension, American communities, is spreading well beyond traditional urban centers.
These are not speculative investments or transient purchases. They are the foundations of family life, the homes where children are raised, where holiday gatherings happen, and where decades of community relationships are built. A 51% homeownership rate among foreign-born households is a powerful indicator that immigrants are not hedging their bets on America. They are committing to it fully, financially and personally.
Which makes the regulatory barriers that immigrant entrepreneurs currently face all the more consequential, and, from Mendoza Law’s perspective, all the more important to understand and address. The Small Business Administration’s 2025 policy changes introduced a requirement that 100% of a business’s owners and key management personnel be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. The practical effect of this policy has been to exclude visa holders, DACA recipients, and asylees from SBA lending programs a group that includes hundreds of thousands of active entrepreneurs and business owners who have been contributing to the American economy for years.
The numbers are stark. This policy change, which Mendoza Law’s research refers to as the ‘SBA Lockout’, has effectively reduced small business lending for foreign entrepreneurs by 46%. Nearly half the lending that was previously available to this community has been cut off, not because these entrepreneurs are poor credit risks or unqualified borrowers, but because of their immigration status. The result is a significant constraint on the economic potential of a community that has demonstrated, repeatedly and at scale, its capacity to build successful businesses and create jobs for American workers.
The human cost of this barrier is not abstract. It is the restaurant owner who cannot access the capital to open a second location. It is the tech founder whose visa status disqualifies her from the SBA loan that would let her hire her first employees. It is the small manufacturer who has operated successfully for five years but cannot secure the financing to modernize his equipment because his green card application is still pending. These are real people, making real contributions, being turned away from resources that are theoretically available to all American entrepreneurs.
Mendoza Law’s research is not simply a documentation of economic achievement. It is also a call to recognize the gap between what immigrants contribute to the American economy and what the American legal and regulatory system currently offers them in return. Closing that gap through smarter immigration policy, more equitable access to business resources, and legal representation that understands the full complexity of an immigrant entrepreneur’s situation is both an economic imperative and a matter of basic fairness.
