Colorado business leaders – including Republican interests – are trying to put a face to immigration by highlighting the economic impact immigrants have on the country.

The effort comes as President Trump explores expanded deportations and travel restrictions for undocumented immigrants, going as far as to threaten to punish local governments for interfering with any immigration crackdown.

While Trump’s plan to build a multi-billion dollar wall along the Southern border is not supported universally by Republicans, it does have significant GOP backing. This is why Republican business leaders are hoping to shift the conversation by humanizing the impact of immigrants.

“We need to make this a personal issue,” said Jeff Wasden, a Republican and president of the Colorado Business Roundtable, which is part of a recently-launched coalition on immigration reform. “We need to understand how this impacts lives – those lives of the immigrant community and certainly the lives of the business owners that are struggling to find a workforce.”

The bipartisan coalition is using data to fuel their conversation and to look at what practical next steps can be taken.

Business leaders expressing support for immigration reform is nothing new. In 2013, a diverse group of influential leaders came together to support reform efforts in Congress, which were in part spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat. The legislation passed the Senate but stalled in the House.

Stakeholders hope to build on the effort by utilizing research spearheaded by New American Economy, a bipartisan group of business leaders who support immigration reform. The group is connected to the Colorado business effort. This week it launched “Map the Impact,” a campaign to highlight the power of immigrants.

There are 342,509 foreign-born residents who make up 12.5 percent of the Denver area’s population, according to the data. Immigrants in the area paid $2.3 billion in state and local taxes and held $6.9 billion in spending power in 2014.

Interestingly, immigrants are about 1 percent more likely to be entrepreneurs than the domestic population, and there are 20,857 immigrant entrepreneurs in Denver.

Wasden hopes that the data will help quell some of the “hysteria” currently being seen around immigration, especially as Trump has fanned the flames. He said the discussion can include addressing security, but that it shouldn’t dominate the conversation. Looking at illegal employment might be a more practical way of framing immigration reform, Wasden said.

“We want a discussion around welcoming the immigrant community and the contributions that the immigrant community makes,” he said.

Oscar Juarez-Luna, spokesman for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said he is thrilled to see reinforcements coming from the business community with Republican buy-in. An immigrant from Mexico, he owns a commercial cleaning business and employs five people.

“It’s something that any politician should be talking about,” Juarez-Luna said. “We always hear about how we want to create jobs and how we want to grow as a country. This is a big step for business leaders and having Republicans talk about the issue.”

Wasden is optimistic that his coalition will be able to move the needle, despite the inflamed environment for immigration discussions.

“D.C. people are looking to the Republicans that many view as being obstructionists on this issue. They are not. They’re looking to ensure that some of the basic tenets of immigration reform are dealt with first,” Wasden said.

“We have a population that is contributing to the wealth and fabric of our communities. It is impacting the business community positively,” Wasden continued. “In D.C. there’s great support for this. It’s a matter of threading the needle and finding the right time to push this with competing priorities.”