On a muggy Thursday morning in mid-June, Jorge stood near the parking lot entrance to a Home Depot in Hialeah. The 47-year-old Cuban day laborer scanned arriving pick-up trucks for any glimmer of job opportunities, which have become scarcer each passing week. Nearby, Yosvany, another Cuban day laborer in his late-20s fiddled with his phone as he sat on the curb, resigned to the slog of another slow day. A half-dozen more men milled around, as well.
“When [Joe] Biden was president, contractors were here all day, giving us jobs,” Jorge told The Real Deal. “Under [Donald] Trump, no contractors come by anymore. It’s mostly individuals doing small remodeling jobs.”
Jorge, who emigrated from Cuba five years ago and has a work permit, described a landscape transformed, not by hurricanes or black swan events, but by a loud, surging wave of fear created by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Yosvany, who declined to comment about his immigration status, echoed Jorge’s observations. “Work is sporadic,” he said. “And the people who are coming by want to take advantage of you because they know you don’t have papers.”
Jorge, Yosvany and three other men looking for day jobs at Home Depot spoke on the condition that they not reveal their last names. Across South Florida, the anxiety isn’t confined to Home Depot sidewalks. Conversations with day laborers, union leaders, attorneys, and industry experts reveal a world where fear alone is as forceful a disruptor as any hurricane.
Construction sites are among the primary targets for ICE agents. Local municipalities such as Coral Gables, Doral, Miami and Hialeah have signed cooperation agreements to help detain immigrants. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis turned an abandoned jetport in the Everglades into Alligator Alcatraz, a makeshift detention facility that is facing lawsuits over inhumane conditions and environmental damage.
Hard data on how many construction workers have been detained and deported is not available, but TRD interviews with day laborers, union representatives, immigration attorneys and construction industry experts reveal anecdotal evidence that show how fear of being raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had a chilling effect on hiring practices.
President Trump’s immigration policies are adding to existing pressure on the construction labor pool, which include a lack of skilled workers and a large share of workers who exited the industry during the pandemic and never returned.
Crackdown creates chilling effect
The immigration crackdown will likely make construction more expensive and create additional delays, as developers are already grappling with high costs linked to increased interest rates and tariffs. Larger homebuilders may be more vulnerable to unclear or unresolved immigration policies because they rely on immigrant labor, according to a study released by the National Association of Home Builders, Home Builders Institute and University of Denver.
The effects are more than theoretical. In May, ICE agents swept several construction sites near Florida State University in Tallahassee, detaining more than 100 people suspected of being undocumented. However, only six of the workers were illegal immigrants, published reports state.
In Brevard County, dozens of landscapers and construction workers were picked up and transferred to already overwhelmed detention facilities. In the Florida Keys, six Nicaraguan roofers — each with work permits — were snatched during a traffic stop and shipped off for deportation hearings. Their employer, Vincent Scardina, and their attorney, Regilucia Smith, declined comment.
Subcontracting firms that once depended on a ready pool of immigrant labor have shifted rapidly. “Subcontractors are scared to hire workers, even those with work permits,” said Rony Carballo, South Florida representative for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
“They don’t want to train people when their status could be revoked overnight,” Carballo told TRD. “It’s like entering a labyrinth with no exit.”
Beyond the Tallahassee raid, many members of the Associated Builders and Contractors have not yet reported large-scale ICE operations at their work sites, said Peter Dyga, CEO of the organization’s Florida chapter. However, the optics of ICE’s Tallahassee operation did have a lasting impact.
Associated Builders represents large commercial contractors that are less concerned with hiring laborers at Home Depot or informal day sites, but the trickle-down fear is real, Dyga acknowledged.
“Everyone’s become more diligent,” he said. “No one wants to be the headline because a subcontractor hired a crew with the wrong documents. We do everything by the book.”
Dyga also noted that uncertainty about workers being rounded up — even ones who have been vetted as having legal status — affects construction budgets.
“The commercial side of our industry cares most about predictability,” Dyga said. “If I estimate a project’s costs today, but six or 12 months from now my workforce shrinks, my whole business model is blown out of the water.”
Paperwork paranoia
For employers in the construction and hospitality industries, vetting workers has become a Kafkaesque ordeal, said Scott Bettridge, Miami-based chair of law firm Cozen O’Connor’s national immigration practice. “I’ve got cleaning companies with 40 [percent] to 50 percent of staff affected, many of them Venezuelan,” Bettridge said.
As status revocations multiply, Bettridge said, the burden falls on employers to comb through files, verifying who is legally employable and who might be using false documents. For the layered world of subcontractors that drives Florida construction, the risk multiplies, he added.
“You can ask your [subcontractors] for assurances, but how deep do you want to go?” Bettridge said. “If you micromanage, you risk being considered their direct employer. But if you don’t, you’re gambling that their paperwork is clean. No one has the bandwidth to audit every crew on every job.”
Bettridge considers the national E-Verify system, a database that provides information on the legal status of immigrant workers, as a partial safeguard. But it’s hardly bulletproof.
“Some companies set up a dozen shell entities with 24 workers each to get around a 25-employee threshold in Florida to verify workers’ status,” Bettridge said. “That might comply with the letter of the law, but it’s a risky way to skate by.”
And then there’s the federal government’s draconian approach.
“ICE agents have started showing up with pre-typed waivers asking employers to consent to broad searches, even beyond public areas,” Bettridge said. “We warn our clients: Never volunteer this. But one panicked receptionist or security guard, and suddenly your job site becomes an open book.”
Even legals aren’t safe
Even lawfully present workers are no longer safe. Union representative Carballo described the case of a Cuban journeyman painter who has been a legal permanent resident for more than a decade. ICE agents scooped him up when he showed up for a military base job in Tampa, Carballo said.
“He got in trouble with the law five years ago and paid his debt,” Carballo said. “Just to pad their detention numbers, they’re ending a man’s life here. He’ll be deported to a third country and lose everything.”
In South Florida, five union members had recent job assignments canceled because their immigration status changed, Carballo said. “Venezuelans, Cubans — people with work permits or seeking asylum — are suddenly being denied by E-verify,” Carballo said. “It means starting from scratch: retraining, delays, higher costs.”
For highly skilled trades like industrial painting — requiring expertise with hazardous chemicals and equipment, and often facing additional hurdles like drug testing — the impact is acute. Carballo estimates over 70 workers whose work permits were revoked lost their jobs with a painting company that has a contract at Orlando’s Disney World.
“Replacing that kind of qualified labor means going back to square one,” Carballo said. “Every delay puts projects behind schedule.”
