Immigration crackdown adds delays, costs to South Texas construction

Brand new, modular duplexes line a growing neighborhood with pristine lawns in the Harlingen area near the southern tip of Texas. But many of the homes stand unfinished.

“You'll see that the framing crew that's there now is very slim, but normally it's about 8 to 10 guys,” said Ronnie Cavazos, who is building the new neighborhood with his firm The Structure Team.

Just a few framers are working on a cement slab in the new neighborhood. They’ll make a skeleton for the home out of lumber.

“It requires a lot of math, a lot of measuring,” Cavazos said. “It's a tough job for them, especially in the type of weather that we're in. You know the [Rio Grande] Valley will see 108, 110 degree weather.”

Cavazos has struggled to find qualified labor to do the job. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have thinned out the labor force; some people have been deported, others, including some who may have legal status, aren’t working because they fear immigration enforcement. In Texas, undocumented workers represent roughly a quarter of the construction labor force, according to the American Immigration Council.

“We go down a list of 30 framers … just to find one, and he's probably charging more than what we originally had budgeted,” Cavazos said.

Construction on this phase will likely take 18 months instead of 12, he said. Cavazos has also built $15,000 worth of fences around the construction sites to make it harder for ICE to arrest workers.

“We've had to file extensions on the loans that we have for the project in order to be able to continue getting that project funded,” Cavazos said. “At this point, I'll venture to say that in 2026 we probably are not going to make any money.”

Worksite raids and immigrant arrests are happening in different parts of the United States while the construction industry continues to face a major worker deficit.

“Department of Labor would tell you, on a monthly basis, anywhere from in the last three years, 250,000 to 450,000 vacant jobs in the building construction industry,” said Ed Brady with the Home Builders Institute. “So, however you look at that, at the low level, it's still a crisis.”

According to one industry estimate, some 19,000 fewer houses were built in 2024 in the U.S. because of the ongoing labor deficit. But now, he said, immigration policy is working against the industry.

“With immigrants being 30% of our trades,” Brady said, “we're losing many more than we're bringing into the industry right now.”

And those workers have families that depend on that income, like Breana, a South Texas resident whose husband works in construction. He was arrested and deported by immigration officials over the summer.

“The day he was detained, he was on his way to a construction job,” she said, in Spanish. Breana is a U.S. citizen, but because of her husband’s ongoing immigration case, Marketplace is using a different name.

After her husband was deported to Mexico, her household is bringing in $2,000 less each month. Even though she works seven days a week, it’s hard to make ends meet. She has three children.

“It’s been very difficult economically and emotionally,” she said.

Her husband — who she was sponsoring for a visa — has worked in construction his whole life. He learned it from his dad.

Just like Ronnie Cavazos. His dad was a framer from Mexico, and that’s who got him into construction. Now he wonders about the future of the industry without the experienced framers and other workers.

“We got rid of all the knowledge, and we got rid of all the workers, and now what?” he said.