While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.
Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.
Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists.
“It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,” said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor” to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles.
oh yea, republicans will spend all day whining about “illegals” but not one nanosecond even talking about the CEOs who hire those illegals, giving them a reason to come here in the first place
I’ve made this observation for some time now. Isn’t funny how the industries which hire illegal immigrants are skewed conservative ownership-wise? Construction, roofing, agriculture, trucking, hotels. My belief is that in addition to exploiting division and fear, they want to keep these workers marginalized so they can take advantage of them. Being able to dodge OSHA, medical comp, minimum wage, payroll tax, and so on are all Republican dreams.
sounds a bit like slavery, don’t you think?
Wait until you hear about the prison industrial complex.
I worked with a construction firm that hired undocumented Hispanic laborers. The owner wrapped the semi he used for hauling his offshore race boat in a gaudy Trump themed canvas for the 2016 election.
The dichotomy of man in two sentences.
There have been sections of the border which enacted tough enough policies and technology to actually keep out illegal immigrants. Over time, it cratered the local economies, to the point that politicians got involved and fixed the border patrols back to the insecure way, so that everyone could have a big pool of desperate, vulnerable farm workers again.
Got an article on that? Seems like that would be an interesting read.
This isn’t exactly what the previous comment was talking about, but it’s similar. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers and there’s something similar going on Florida too https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1242236604/florida-economy-immigration-businesses-workers-undocumented
These are my go-to articles anytime the subject of undocumented workers comes up. Personally, I think we would go back to the old model. If I remember correctly, the 1930s was when immigration started to be severely restricted; but, before that, temporary workers would come up for a season of employment and then go back home. All of it was done legally. It wasn’t until immigration restrictions were enacted that there was an incentive to stay and move their families into the US.
https://business.time.com/2012/09/21/bitter-harvest-u-s-farmers-blame-billion-dollar-losses-on-immigration-laws/
https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article227483414.html
They’re not exactly the story I was thinking of, but the pattern of actions is generally the same.
Trump. Trump hires illegals too while bitching about them
I seem to remember (but am too lazy to look up) something about Trump using undocumented Polish laborers on a building project, providing no PPE, paid them sub-minimum wage, no overtime. Reported the laborers to INS so they would be deported to avoid getting sued.
Yeah, first year of that sleezey presidency they had position postings for his vineyard looking for migrant workers
Home builders are greasy as shit but I didn’t expect them to say the quiet part out loud.
I used to write project maintenance software for a home builder. Right before I left that gig, the company’s owner got busted banging his son’s wife. Just a little anecdote about a bit of loathsomeness I’ve never encountered anywhere else.
The profit margins on this business were just insane. Like, houses cost between $30 and $40 grand to build (with corners cut in all sorts of ridiculous ways) and sold for $125 to $150 grand.
Man… id love to buy an overpriced house for $100k. Now their like $400k+
Yeah, this was 20 years ago.