The Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant crackdown is worsening an already severe construction labor shortage, especially in states like Texas that rely heavily on foreign-born labor, NPR reports.
The story, which includes extensive interviews with industry officials and immigrant workers, cautions that White House-directed raids are keeping both undocumented migrants and those here legally away from job sites, delaying projects and driving up costs.
California and New Jersey are tied for the largest number of foreign-born construction workers with 41% each, according to the National Association of Home Builders. However, Texas isn’t far behind with 38%.
A recent Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) survey found that 92% of construction businesses are struggling to fill positions amid raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over past six months, 28% of firms in the survey said they’d been affected by the ICE crackdown, while 10% said they’d lost workers to actual or rumored raids.
“Firms say it’s extremely disruptive when workers fail to show up or leave in the middle of a task,” AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson told NPR. “A building project is step by step. So it’s fine if you get the foundation poured and the beams up to hold up the building. But if you can’t put on the roof, you’re not going to be able to finish things off.”
The situation is especially bleak in the home-building industry, where an ongoing shortage of workers costs $11 billion in profits annually, the Home Building Institute estimates.
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