ICE raids leave construction companies in the US without workers: warnings of delays and higher costs

Leo Cárdenas, a Venezuelan contractor from Dunwoody, Georgia, has lost all his workers in recent months: most of them, including his stepfather, ended up back in their countries of origin, deported or self-deported, amid the immigration crackdown by United States President Donald Trump.

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This father of a baby girl has had to "reinvent himself" to keep his small business afloat without any help, fearing that he too could become the next target for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, despite being in the country legally.

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"This situation is unsustainable," Cárdenas told EFE, adding that he even had to sell his white work truck, a type of vehicle that has become a priority target for immigration agents.

Like the Venezuelan contractor, thousands of construction contractors are facing difficulties finding workers in a sector that lost about 5,100 jobs between September 2025 and September 2026 in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the most affected in the country in a context marked by ICE raids, according to surveys by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).

"Better not to expose oneself to ICE"

"The impact is real. According to the AGC, the lack of workers is now the main cause of construction delays. That translates into higher costs and longer deadlines," Gabriela Matute, executive director of the Georgia Hispanic Construction Association (GHCA), told EFE.

Matute indicated that this labor shortage "is not a new phenomenon but a cyclical one," although she acknowledges that the climate of uncertainty due to ICE operations "affects the entire Hispanic community, and construction is no exception."

"In our industry, it is felt with special force, because for decades construction has been the gateway for generations of Hispanic immigrants: the place where they learned a trade, made a name for themselves, and, with years of effort, came to own their own company. Many of the entrepreneurs who generate jobs in Georgia today started exactly like this," she stated.

The executive director of the GHCA said that even workers with legal status and U.S. citizens are missing work because they prefer not to expose themselves or their families.

In addition to ICE enforcement operations, the AGC also mentions rising material costs, interest rates, and political uncertainty as factors slowing down new projects.

National shortage

According to the AGC, the labor shortage in construction "remains severe" nationwide. After Atlanta, the most affected areas are New York-New Jersey, Oakland and Riverside-San Bernardino in California, and Lakewood-New Brunswick in New Jersey. Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Arlington, San Diego, and Corpus Christi are also listed.

The association points out that immigration enforcement "affects staff availability in nearly a third of firms, even when market conditions soften."

87% of surveyed companies have openings for craft workers and 82% for salaried positions, a lack of staff that is causing construction delays.

In fact, 42% reported delays in projects due to the lack of their own workers or those of their subcontractors, according to this year's survey by the AGC and the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER), which interviewed 1,830 companies.