As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Donald Trump\u2019s stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation\u2019s labor force. <\/p>\n
More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.<\/p>\n
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Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.<\/p>\n
The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unclear how much of the decline we\u2019ve seen since January is due to voluntary departures to pursue other opportunities or avoid deportation, removals, underreporting or other technical issues,\u201d Kramer said. \u201cHowever, we don\u2019t believe that the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn\u2019t real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally. He has said he is focusing deportation efforts on \u201cdangerous criminals,\u201d but most people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions. At the same time, the number of illegal border crossings has plunged under his policies.<\/p>\n
Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said immigrants normally contribute at least 50% of job growth in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe influx across the border from what we can tell is essentially stopped, and that\u2019s where we were getting millions and millions of migrants over the last four years,\u201d she said. \u201cThat has had a huge impact on the ability to create jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Crops did go to waste\u2019 <\/p>\n
Just across the border from Mexico in McAllen, Texas, corn and cotton fields are about ready for harvesting. Elizabeth Rodriguez worries there won\u2019t be enough workers available for the gins and other machinery once the fields are cleared.<\/p>\n
Immigration enforcement actions at farms, businesses and construction sites brought everything to a standstill, said Rodriguez, director of farmworker advocacy for the National Farmworker Ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn May, during the peak of our watermelon and cantaloupe season, it delayed it. A lot of crops did go to waste,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles, Lisa Tate manages her family business that grows citrus fruits, avocados and coffee on eight ranches and 800 acres (323 hectares).<\/p>\n
Most of the men and women who work their farms are contractor-provided day laborers. There were days earlier this year when crews would be smaller. Tate is hesitant to place that blame on immigration policies. But the fear of ICE raids spread quickly.<\/p>\n
Dozens of area farmworkers were arrested late this spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were being taken out of laundromats, off the side of the road,\u201d Tate said.<\/p>\n
Lidia, the farmworker who spoke to the AP through an interpreter, said her biggest fear is being sent back to Mexico. Now 36, she is married with three school-age children who were born here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll be able to bring my kids,\u201d said Lidia. \u201dI\u2019m also very concerned I\u2019d have to start from zero. My whole life has been in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
From construction to health care <\/p>\n
Construction sites in and around McAllen also \u201care completely dead,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a large labor force that is undocumented,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen ICE particularly targeting construction sites and attempting to target mechanic and repair shops.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of construction jobs are down in about half of U.S. metropolitan areas, according to an Associated General Contractors of America analysis of government employment data. The largest loss of 7,200 jobs was in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California, area. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area lost 6,200 jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cConstruction employment has stalled or retreated in many areas for a variety of reasons,\u201d said Ken Simonson, the association\u2019s chief economist. \u201cBut contractors report they would hire more people if only they could find more qualified and willing workers and tougher immigration enforcement wasn\u2019t disrupting labor supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kramer, with Pew, also warns about the potential impact on health care. She says immigrants make up about 43% of home health care aides.<\/p>\n
The Service Employees International Union represents about 2 million workers in health care, the public sector and property services. An estimated half of long-term care workers who are members of SEIU 2015 in California are immigrants, said Arnulfo De La Cruz, the local\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider?\u201d De La Cruz said. \u201cWhat happens when immigrants aren\u2019t in the field to pick our crops? Who\u2019s going to staff our hospitals and nursing homes?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[28,793,97,252,253,790,1929,111,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-125129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-labor","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}