America is suffering a shortage of construction workers and sabotaging its ability to fill vacancies by wiping out the industry’s immigrant backbone

Last July, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson warned his $20 million recreation center project in Mobile, Alabama, would likely be delayed for three weeks. He told Reuters that half of his workers stopped showing up to the site after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on another site in Florida, nearly 230 miles away, afraid of facing the risk of deportation. The delay would cost Robertson an estimated $84,000, with $4,000 of daily “liquidation damages” mounting for each day the project dragged past its Nov. 1 deadline. Robertson’s problem may be a nationwide challenge. New data has confirmed economists’ concern that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has led to fewer jobs in critical industries, particularly construction, reifying fears of labor shortages, delays, and ultimately passed-down costs to homebuyers. A working paper recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found employment among likely undocumented immigrants dropped 4% on average in areas where ICE conducted recent raids. Construction was the most affected industry the researchers tracked, with employment dropping 7.5% for undocumented workers. The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) estimates 35% of construction workers are immigrants. Despite immigrants’ role in the construction industry—and the broader economy—the Trump administration has taken substantial efforts to curb immigration. On Friday, the White House announced that most foreigners seeking green cards must go back to their home countries in order to apply, a policy shift that could impact hundreds of thousands of foreigners seeking permanent residency in the U.S. But it’s not just construction jobs at risk because of the immigration crackdown, economists warn. “If the supply of immigrants is cut off, as it seems to be with the borders effectively closed these days, I think it will get much harder for the construction industry to fill positions,” Ken Simonson, chief econo