Trump pledges to deport millions. Builders say that will raise costs

Both presidential candidates promised to build more homes. One of them promises to deport the hundreds of thousands of people who are building it.

Industry leaders, contractors and economists say former President Donald Trump's pledge to “launch the largest deportation in the history of our country” would cripple builders already facing labor shortages and push home prices to record highs.

“This will be detrimental to our construction industry and labor supply and will 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 their legal status, a “vital and flexible source of labor” for construction companies, estimating that they hold 30% of trade jobs such as carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical.

The latest federal data showed that nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants were living in the United States as of 2022, down from a peak of 11.8 million in 2007. The construction sector employs an estimated 1.5 million undocumented workers, or 13% of Its total workforce – a larger number. share of any other country, according to data provided by the Pew Research Center to NBC News. Industry experts say rates are higher in Sun Belt states like Florida and Texas, and more pronounced in residential construction than in commercial construction.

For Brent Taylor, homebuilding has been “a very difficult industry the last few years, and it seems to be getting worse.” His five-person Tampa-based company hires subcontractors to do all the work, and if those companies' employees “show up at my job site because they work for that company, I don't know if they're legal or not.” He said.

Labor is already tight, with the U.S. construction industry still looking to fill 370,000 open jobs, according to federal data. If crews shrink further, “I can now only do 10 jobs a year instead of 20,” Taylor said. “I either make half as much or I raise my prices. Who pays for that in the end? The homeowner.”

Trump did not provide details on how his proposed “whole-of-government” effort to remove as many as 20 million people — a much larger undocumented population — would succeed, but he made it central to his housing pitch. The Republican candidate claims that mass deportations will free up homes for American citizens and lower prices, although few economists agree. The idea has also raised doubts for logistical reasons, with some analysts saying its costs would be “astronomical.”

Doubts are also growing among homebuilders about Trump's ability to keep his promise.

“They don't think it's going to happen,” Stan Marek, CEO of Marek Group of Companies, a Texas-based specialty subcontracting firm, said of his industry colleagues. “You'll lose so many people that you won't be able to get a crew together to frame a house.”

Brian Dunn, senior vice president of Big-D Construction, a major Southwest, Arizona-based company, called “the idea that they could actually move that many people” out of the country “almost laughable.” He said the proposal left those in the industry “trying to figure out how politically fear-mongering it is.”

But while Trump has a history of floating outlandish ideas without seriously pursuing them — such as buying Greenland — he has embraced other once-radical policies that have reset the terms of political debate despite intense criticism and litigation. This is especially true on immigration, as his administration has diverted Pentagon funds to build a border wall, banned travel from several Muslim-majority countries, and separated immigrant children from their parents.

Trump has stressed the idea of ​​deportation, at times spreading racist rhetoric such as claiming that thousands of immigrants commit murder because it's “in their genes.” This month, he accused migrant gangs of “invading and occupying” cities such as Aurora, Colorado, something local authorities deny, saying they need federal help but do not want to participate in mass deportations. However, recent polls have found widespread support for deporting people who came to the United States illegally.

“President Trump’s mass deportations of illegal immigrants will not only make our communities safer, it will protect Americans from footing the bill for years to come,” Taylor Rogers, a spokesman for the Republican National Campaign Committee, said in a statement, referring to deportations of undocumented people. Use of taxpayer-funded social services and other federal programs.

Carolyn Leavitt, Trump campaign press secretary, said in a statement that the former president's comments about genes “clearly point to murderers, not immigrants.”

Tobin said NAHB has real concerns about the deportation proposal but is participating in both campaigns. She called on policymakers to “let builders build” by relaxing zoning and other regulatory hurdles and improving developers' access to financing.

“The rhetoric about immigration is No. 11,” Tobin said. He added: “We have to have a serious conversation in this country about immigration policy and reform, and we can no longer delay that.”

Marek, who has long called for more ways for undocumented people to work legally in construction, said reforms were decades overdue. As an employer, “I do everything I can to make sure everyone is legal,” he said, even as the industry's thirst for low-cost labor has created a shadow economy that he says often exploits the undocumented workers it relies on.

“We need them. They have been building our homes for 30 years,” he said. “The loss of workers will devastate our companies, our industry and our economy.”

There is evidence to suggest that foreign-born construction workers help keep the housing market in check. A December 2022 analysis by the George W. Bush Institute and Southern Methodist University found that U.S. metro areas with the fastest-growing immigrant populations have the lowest construction costs.

“Immigrant construction workers in Sun Belt metros such as Raleigh, Nashville, Houston, and San Antonio have helped these cities maintain a housing cost advantage over coastal cities despite rapid growth in housing demand,” the authors wrote.

But construction workers need more workers as it stands. “The math is not there” to withstand the hit from mass deportations, said Ron Hetrick, chief labor economist at workforce analysis firm Lightcast. “It would be incredibly disruptive” and would cause “a very big hit to homebuilding,” he said.

Private sector employers have been adding jobs over the past decade, with employment levels now topping 8 million, and more than 1 million since the pandemic, according to payroll processor ADP. But as Hetrick points out, “the average high school student doesn't aspire to do this work,” and the current workforce is aging — the average age of a home builder is 57.

Undocumented workers are likely to flee before any national deportation efforts, even though many have been in the United States for more than a decade, Hetrick said. Such a policy is expected to lead to a mass exodus of people who also have legal permission.

He added: “This is exactly what happened in Florida.”

Last year, the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, issued a series of restrictions and penalties to deter the hiring of undocumented workers. Many migrant workers left the state in a hurry even before the policies took effect, and videos on social media show some construction sites empty.

“These laws show they have no idea what we're doing,” said Luciano, a Mexican-born carpenter who has worked on apartment buildings in South Florida for the past decade.

“No one else would work in the conditions we do,” the 40-year-old said in Spanish, asking that his first name be used because he lacks legal immigration status, despite living in the United States for more than 20 years. Workers on job sites “have an in time but no out time,” he said, often logging 70 hours a week in the rain and sweltering heat.

Taylor remembers the panic his fellow Florida construction workers felt during the statewide crackdown, but said he reassured them: “Look, just give it six months. We don't have enough people to enforce it, so they'll come back.”

Republican state Rep. Rick Roth, who voted for the measure, later admitted that Florida was not prepared for the destabilization it would cause and urged immigrant residents not to flee, saying the law was “not as bad as you heard.”

Some workers returned after realizing policies were not being strictly enforced: “Definitely, things are more normal now,” Taylor said.

DeSantis' office did not respond to a request for comment.

When Arizona enacted what were at the time among the nation's toughest immigration restrictions in 2010, Dan was working in Tempe as an executive at a construction management company. As the legislation passed, he said, “A lot of people migrated and never came back.”

By the time much of the law was repealed in 2012, “Arizona had a bad reputation” compared to other states that “were more open and less difficult to work in,” he said.

Dunn, a Democrat, said he “absolutely” supports Vice President Kamala Harris, but other construction executives seemed more divided. Marek, a “lifelong Republican,” declined to share how he voted but noted that “a lot of Republicans don't vote for Trump.”

Taylor also did not say which candidate he supports, but praised Trump's ability to “get things done.”

“There are many other economic issues we fight every day that have nothing to do with immigration reform,” he said. “I'm not a one-policy voter.”