A Texas construction crew works on a highway project. Credit: WIkimedia Commons / Bill Jacobus
Trump administration’s intensifying immigration crackdown will likely delay San Antonio construction projects and hike costs due to the industry’s high reliance on foreign-born labor, new data suggests.
The number of foreign-born construction workers has consistently risen for more than a decade, and some 34.5% of San Antonio’s workforce was born outside the U.S., a new study by construction software firm Construction Coverage shows.
“If the recent intensification of immigration enforcement has in fact reduced the foreign-born construction industry workforce, I would expect that to only exacerbate the already understaffed construction industry,” Mike LaFirenza, a Construction Coverage spokesman told the Current via email.
LaFirenza added that resulting labor shortages would delay building projects and force companies to raise wages, especially because the crackdown comes in the midst of a “record construction boom.”
Indeed, the White House’s aggressive immigration enforcement has already created hurdles for the construction industry, according to earlier reporting by the Current.
Undocumented construction workers around the state began vacating job sites as early as February out of fear, American Immigration Council Texas organizer Chelsie Kramer told the Current. In early November, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) reported that 92% of construction businesses were struggling to find workers.
Between 2009 and 2023, the number of foreign-born construction workers increased by more than 435,000, now comprising 26% of the industry, according to Construction Coverage’s study.
San Antonio’s construction industry has the 14th-largest percentage of foreign-born workers of any large U.S. metro, according to the the company’s research. Meanwhile, Texas sits at No. 2 for the highest percentage of foreign-born construction workers at 40.2%.
“These workers are integral not only to residential and commercial building projects, but also to the maintenance and repair of the nation’s aging infrastructure,” Construction Coverage researchers wrote.
The study defined construction work through a range of occupations, ranging from plumbers and laborers to company executives. Researchers also used the data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, which doesn’t make a distinction between documented and undocumented foreign-born workers.
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