Immigration Crackdowns Are Deepening America’s Housing and Labor Crisis

A breakdown of recent data paints a stark picture, but a lack of follow-through could be a sign of hope. Guest author Justin R. Wolf offers truth to power with this opening statement in his article to follow. The unprecedented actions of our current administration affects the built environment and all those who strive to make our world a better place each and every day. 

As immigration raids increase across the U.S., the construction workforce — which relies heavily on immigrant labor — is shrinking, worsening the nation’s housing shortage and driving up costs. This article examines how recent enforcement actions, labor trends, and housing data intersect to threaten home-building capacity.

A Personal Story Highlights the Human Cost

Last June, Jose Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz, a carpenter and co-owner of New Frameworks, a Vermont-based general contractor and co-op focused on regenerative design, was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), along with his 18-year-old stepdaughter, Heidi Perez.

CBP claimed the two were detained due to “suspicious activity” and failing to comply with orders. The organization Migrant Justice, a Burlington-based nonprofit that advocates for the rights of undocumented workers, told local media that “agents smashed their car window and violently detained the two community leaders.” This much was confirmed when a CBP spokesperson said De La Cruz and his stepdaughter “refused to answer the agents’ questions and would not roll down the vehicle’s windows. Agents were forced to break a window to remove both occupants.”

New Frameworks issued a statement that read, in part, “Beyond being a skilled builder, Nacho is a cornerstone of the work we do to create healthy, climate-resilient homes in Vermont. His leadership and care have shaped our projects, our people, and our purpose.” The work of New Frameworks is notable for several reasons, not the least of which are its efforts to assuage Vermont’s ongoing housing shortage. According to Vermont’s latest assessment, the state needs to build approximately 24,000 homes within the next five years to meet demand. New Frameworks manufactures a line of prefabricated homes using strawbale structural panels, ranging in size from 300 to 1,200 square feet.

Immigrants Make Up a Quarter of the U.S. Construction Workforce

According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), immigrants make up about one-fourth of construction industry workers. The percentages are significantly higher when you isolate specific trades like drywall and ceiling tile installers (61%), roofers (52%), and carpet/flooring installers (45%). Independent of these figures, there is also an endemic labor shortage in the housing trades, with notable gaps among the aforementioned groups, as well as  carpenters, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, and others.

What is not independent of the foreign-born workforce and labor shortage statistics is the fact that, since Donald Trump re-entered the White House, there has been significant uptick in the number of workplace raids carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The construction, hospitality, agriculture, and healthcare industries – all of which rely heavily on foreign-born labor, both documented and undocumented – have all been impacted.

Immigration Raids Are Colliding with Housing Shortages

When you consider the country’s housing and labor shortages in tandem with increased immigration crackdowns, some disturbing parallels emerge.

First off, no state is immune from the country’s housing shortage, which currently stands at roughly 6 million homes, according to the AEI Housing Center. Three of the most populous states, California, New York, and Florida, have some of the most significant shortages, followed by Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington. (California’s shortage alone is estimated to be roughly 2.2 million homes, or 15% of its current stock.) Those three states also boast disproportionately high percentages of immigrant craftsmen in the construction trades, with California at 50%, New York 49%, and Florida 45%. (New Jersey, Texas, Nevada, and Georgia also rank high on that list.)  

Between January 20 and June 26 of this year, the states with the highest number of immigration-related arrests were Texas, Florida, and California, together comprising 41% of all arrests, according to the Deportation Data Project. The states with the greatest labor shortages in the construction trades are (no surprise here) Texas, Florida, California, New York, and Arizona.

What Labor Shortages Mean for Housing Costs

The NAHB estimates that residential housing’s combined contributions (investments plus consumption spending) to the national GDP is between 15% to 18%. Quick math: that’s as much as $4.2 trillion. Further construction delays and fewer housing starts brought on by further strains to the workforce will only lead to rising home prices. Last month alone, housing starts dropped 8.5%, hitting their lowest levels since May 2020. 

 

To be fair, the combined housing and labor shortages have been matriculating for several years, since at least the onset of the Great Recession. As those problems compounded, one could also point to the comparatively high number of deportations that were occurring under the Obama administration. (Most estimates put the number at 3 million between 2009 and 2016, with more than 400,000 happening in 2012 alone.) However, any connection between those stat lines is speculative.

Policy Choices That Could Stabilize the Workforce

Industries are pushing back, and the Trump administration is responding, at least to some of them. Following the immigration raid at a Hyundai EV battery plant immigration raid at a Hyundai EV battery plant in Georgia, in which 475 South Korean workers were arrested, Trump pumped the breaks on further raids that have been impacting the agriculture and hospitality industries. “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” the president wrote in June, via Truth Social.

Admittedly, it is always a bit jarring whenever Trump unleashes a perfectly rational thought, but then, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Whether this administration intends to follow through on its promised “largest deportation program in American history” is anyone’s guess. Whether it intends to follow through on its more recent promise of solving the country’s housing affordability crisis – something that will require more homes and lower mortgage rates – could largely hinge on its willingness to stop depleting the home-building trades of their labor. 

With permission we are reprinting this article as it first appeared in "Green Building Advisor." October 14, 2025.  Justin R. Wolf is a Maine based writer who covers green building trends and energy policy. His latest book, "House Up on the Hill: The Revolutionary HMTX Headquarters", is available now. 

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