These industries are seeing labor shortages as illegal immigrants stay home from work

Some industries are now facing labor shortages as illegal immigrants stay home from work, fearing they will be sent home from the US as the Trump administration has been ramping up efforts for deportations.

The shortages are beginning to be seen in the construction, agriculture, senior care facilities, hotels, and others as those fearing they will be deported stay home from work, according to the New York Times.

“Businesses across industries know what comes next when their workforce disappears — restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores struggling to stay open, food prices soaring, and everyday Americans demanding action,” Rebecca Shi, the chief executive of the American Business Immigration Coalition, said as more illegal immigrants have been staying off the job.

Around 20 percent of the US labor force is made up of those who were born outside of the country, both those that are here illegally, as well as those on visas who came through a different legal pathway. When the Biden administration was in the White House, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were shielded from deportation as they got work permits under a temporary protected status program, sometimes known as parole.

The parole program grew in massive numbers under the Biden administration; however, Trump has promised that the program will be rolled back, starting with those that were granted temporary protected status and are from Venezuela and Haiti. The program under Biden also included immigrants from Cuba as well as Nicaragua.

Democrats have at times argued that Americans are not willing to perform work in agriculture or other industries in their talking points against Trump's efforts on deportation. The Democratic mayor of Houston, John Whitmire, told the Times that he thinks that people who say the US does not need labor performed by illegal immigrants “don’t live in the real world.”

He added, “You know who’s paving our roads and building our houses.”

The chief executive of Manchester Care Homes and Cambridge Caregivers in Dallas Adam Lampert made similar comments: “We don’t go out looking for people who are immigrants,” he said. “We go out hiring people who answer the call — and they are all immigrants.

Although, Lampert claimed that everyone he hires has legal status in the US, but said that if Trump is deporting those that are illegal, his industry might face difficulty hiring more people.

Some Republicans, as well as Vice President JD Vance, although, have countered the argument often presented by Democrats. During an interview for the 2024 campaign, said that the deportation effort will pressure American businesses to hire more qualified American workers.

“I think that what you would do is you would take, let’s say for example, the seven million prime-age men who have dropped out of the labor force, and you have a smaller number of women, but still millions of women, prime-age, who have dropped out of the labor force. You absolutely could re-engage folks into the American labor market," Vance said at the time.