At 6 a.m. on a chilly April morning, Luis C, a 46-year-old migrant construction worker from Chile, was waiting for the path train to Journal Square in Jersey City to start work. Two years ago, he came to the U.S. with his wife and their 4-year-old daughter on a tourist visa, and they have been here ever since.
“I’m a carpenter, working on residential and office buildings,” Luis C said in Spanish. “But now there are fewer workers on my site because of the impact of President Trump’s immigration policies.”
Luis C, an undocumented construction worker, in Jersey City.
Credit: Zhenjia Zhang
As the U.S. housing crisis continues, the labor force building the nation’s homes is shrinking. Crackdowns on undocumented immigrants and fear of mass deportation under the Trump administration are pushing migrant workers out of the construction industry, a sector that relies heavily on them.
Luis C’s worksite in Jersey City
Credit: Zhenjia Zhang
“Unauthorized immigrants are having some concern about showing up for work because they fear immigration enforcement,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. “People who may appear to be immigrants are here legally may also face greater scrutiny as immigration enforcement increases.”
As a nation of immigrants, immigration has been a source of strength for the U.S. economy, especially in construction. As of July, the Home Builders Institute (BHI), a Washington-based nonprofit, reported that 248,000 construction jobs need to be filled nationwide. But native-born workers remain lukewarm to work in construction and continue joining the industry at a slower rate than immigrants, who have essentially been filling this gap.
Data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), another Washington think tank, show that immigrants hold 34% of jobs in the construction and extraction industries nationwide. In New Jersey, according to 2023 data from the MPI, 40.5% of are foreign-born, and 2019 data showed that 17% of workers were undocumented. Mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would worsen the labor shortage.
“Given the current environment, if you’re worried about that on your job as a construction worker all of a sudden being pulled aside,” said David E Frame, associate professor of professional practice at Rutgers University, “That’s going to make it just that much more difficult to hire people.”
The same fear applies to those with legal status under strict Form I-9, which requires employers to report their workers’ authorization, and the voluntary E-Verify program, a system that allows enrolled employers to confirm employees’ eligibility to work in the United States. Trump’s crackdown on immigration could impact those rules.
Now, some Republican senators are proposing to make E-Verify mandatory, potentially pushing many immigrants out of construction. In 2023 Florida passed a very strict law on tracking undocumented immigrants in 2023, and since then numerous construction sites have appeared abandoned, with significantly fewer workers present than usual.
“Increased worksite raids may not only impact the construction labor supply by leading to increased removal of workers,” said Jorge Gonzales, a housing expert at the Urban Institute. “But it can also deter other people, including those with lawful status, from coming to worksites due to fear of being profiled.”
Mass deportation and tighter immigration policy lead to labor shortages, which increase the costs, because housing developers will need to pay more to attract workers when there are fewer of them. The increased construction costs translate into higher housing prices and rents. In some cases, labor shortages may prevent a housing project from being completed altogether, further constraining the supply of available housing.
Luis C’s worksite in Jersey City
Credit: Zhenjia Zhang
Reports from EPI show that employers increase their profits and push down wages and labor standards by exploiting migrant workers, which could make migrant workers like Luis C more vulnerable, leading to a chain reaction in the housing market.
“It’s really hard to find a job, especially when you are undocumented,” Luis C said. “They used to pay me $25 an hour. Now it’s $20 an hour.” Even in this risky situation, he said he never thought about leaving his job because he wanted to provide for his family.
In addition to a shortage of labor, Trump’s plans to raise tariffs could lead to higher costs for raw materials like lumber, a key component in home-building. Roughly 85% of U.S. lumber is imported from Canada, which is already subject to a 14.5% tariff. Experts warn that these tariffs could rise even further, pushing construction costs higher.
“Higher tariffs could lift prices on key materials,” said Michael Neal, a housing expert from the Urban Institute, “depending on other factors, it could make construction and perhaps housing costs faced by consumers more expensive.”
Combined with tariffs, the labor shortage means home building is taking longer and costing more. It slows the construction timeline, inflating costs and making it harder to build affordable homes. The delay is further squeezing a market already starved for supply, driving up home prices and affecting more homebuyers, who often don’t have enough money for a down payment and face high mortgage rates.
Luis C’s worksite in Jersey City
Credit: Zhenjia Zhang
Every year since 1990, the U.S. has issued 140,000 green cards for employment-based immigrants, regardless of whether the U.S. economy was in a boom or recession. While the population has increased significantly and labor market needs have changed, the system remains static.
“The share of the labor market in construction that New Jersey faces may be very different than that in Wyoming or Florida or some other place,” said Mittelstadt, “There should be a closer look given to state and local labor markets and economies to make sure at a national level the immigration levels are properly organized to meet what the need is at these levels.”
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is also making an effort to combat tariffs that will harm housing affordability. These efforts include sending comment letters to policymakers, working with advocacy groups, and spreading the message to the media.
With external support of associations like NAHB, and advocacy groups, efforts to reform policy might let the housing market catch its breath.
Luis C’s worksite in Jersey City
Credit: Zhenjia Zhang
Construction workers like Luis C still need to find a way to survive under uncertainty and fear.
“I don’t want to leave yet,” he said. “My life here is just getting started.”