Beneath the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge spanning the Potomac River, Rurick Palomino gestures at the concrete and steel where his 30-person crew conducts demolition and repairs on the $128 million federally funded refurbishment. A Peruvian immigrant who arrived 25 years ago, Palomino built his construction firm from scratch after earning a degree in engineering. He once employed 45 workers, but now deliberately keeps his team smaller.
"There's plenty of work—a lot of mega-projects coming—but I'm afraid to take more because I don't have the manpower," says Palomino, now a U.S. citizen.
His caution reflects a growing crisis across the construction industry, where one in three workers is foreign-born and labor shortages have reached critical levels. Industry officials warn that President Trump's immigration crackdown is turning a chronic problem into an acute emergency.
**Fear on the Worksite**
In Washington, D.C., ICE checkpoints have ensnared Latino workers commuting to jobs. "I personally saw a checkpoint here on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway," Palomino says. "All construction pickups. So, it's happening. People are scared."
The anxiety extends far beyond the capital. In August, federal agents raided day-laborer sites near Home Depot stores in Los Angeles, where a Guatemalan migrant fleeing across a freeway was struck and killed. In June, ICE arrested more than 100 people at a Tallahassee construction site. In October, four workers were detained during a raid in St. Paul, Minnesota.
While the administration highlights its enforcement successes—deporting 400,000 people since January and prompting an estimated 1.6 million to self-deport—the construction industry is counting its losses. A summer survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 92% of firms struggle to fill positions, with 28% reporting immigration-related disruptions in the past six months. Ten percent of workers lost due to actual or rumored raids; 5% experienced ICE visits to job sites.
"When workers fail to show up or leave in the middle of a task, it's extremely disruptive," says Ken Simonson, AGC's chief economist. "A building project is step by step. If you can't put on the roof, you can't finish." The result: delayed timelines and soaring costs for contractors and owners.
**A Ripple Effect of Unease**
The anxiety infects even documented workers. Palomino, who only hires employees with Social Security numbers and driver's licenses—required for government contracts—reports that several of his workers were recently detained by ICE for hours on their way to work. "We could not accomplish what we were supposed to do that day. That, in turn, put us behind schedule."
Sergio Barajas, head of the National Hispanic Construction Alliance, notes that the psychological impact exceeds the physical raids. "That in and of itself is resulting in crews not showing up or a reduced number of persons on a given crew," he says. Some Latino-owned firms are removing business signs from their vehicles to avoid identification as construction crews.
The housing sector faces particular strain. According to the National Association of Home Builders, immigrants comprise high percentages of trades like plastering, drywall installation, roofing, painting, and flooring. The Home Building Institute estimates this shortage costs the industry $11 billion annually, exacerbating a housing deficit of roughly 1.5 million units.
**A Crisis Decades in the Making**
The labor shortage didn't begin with the current crackdown. "Even when we were building more homes than we needed in the early 2000s, we still were facing a labor shortage," says NAHB president Jim Tobin.
Contractors point to America's long-standing devaluation of trade education in favor of four-year degrees. Kenny Mallick, a Maryland plumbing and heating contractor retiring after 30 years, calls it a "broken labor system" that exploits migrants while hurting the economy. "They're stitched into every element of our fabric," he says. "We exploit the shit out of these people."
Like many lifelong Republicans in the industry, Mallick supported Trump but opposes targeting the construction workforce. He runs a non-union "open shop" while competing against contractors who pay undocumented workers $25 an hour through labor brokers, undercutting his $40 hourly rate and union rates of $60. Union representation has collapsed from nearly 40% in 1973 to just over 10% today, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis.
Mark Erlich, a Harvard Law School labor fellow, links declining unionization to wage stagnation. "There's tension between the political imperative of deportations and the interests of contractors who want certainty," he says.
**Can American Workers Fill the Gap?**
The White House argues that deportations create opportunities for U.S. workers. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated that "President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential."
But contractors remain skeptical. "Contrary to whatever the government thinks, they don't want to come to work in construction," Palomino says. Mallick is blunter: "There's no one sitting on the sidelines. Unemployment is low. The trades aren't sexy."
An Economic Policy Institute report in July calculated that achieving the administration's goal of deporting 4 million people by 2028 would eliminate 1.4 million construction workers, triggering a net loss of 861,000 jobs among U.S.-born workers as contractors scale back or shutter.
**Searching for Solutions**
The industry increasingly sees a visa program as essential. "Maybe they can create a path—even if not for citizenship—for good workers to be allowed to work without fear," Palomino suggests.
Trump's April executive order promised to modernize the skilled trades workforce but offered few details. The Department of Labor's temporary Office of Immigration Policy aims to help employers secure the needed workers, but contractor frustration is growing.
Standing beside the Roosevelt Bridge, Palomino reflects on his own journey: "I came to the U.S. with one suitcase, and now I have three families working for me. I think I've fulfilled my American dream—doing everything the right way, one step at a time."
Yet for many in the industry, that dream is becoming harder to achieve—not from lack of work, but from lack of workers willing and able to build it.