In California’s Central Valley, Lidia bends over rows of ripe tomatoes, but the harvest is not her only concern. More than two decades after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization, she still worries that a routine traffic stop could unravel the life she built.
“The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers,” said Lidia, who asked that only her first name be used out of fear of deportation. “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
Her anxiety echoes far beyond the fields. As Americans mark Labor Day with parades honoring workers, experts warn that stepped-up immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump is reshaping the U.S. labor force.
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According to preliminary Census Bureau data reviewed by the Pew Research Center, more than 1.2 million immigrants left the workforce between January and July. That decline spans both undocumented workers and legal residents, and it coincides with the first overall drop in the U.S. immigrant population after years of growth that pushed the number of undocumented immigrants to a record 14 million in 2023.
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Immigrants account for nearly one in five U.S. workers, Pew researcher Stephanie Kramer explained, with especially heavy representation in agriculture, construction, and service jobs. “About 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants,” she noted. “About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants.”
Kramer cautioned that the data is still preliminary. “It’s unclear how much of the decline we’ve seen since January is due to voluntary departures to pursue other opportunities or avoid deportation, removals, underreporting or other technical issues,” she said. “However, we don’t believe that the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn’t real.”
The tightening of immigration rules has rippled through fields and construction sites alike. In McAllen, Texas, Elizabeth Rodriguez of the National Farmworker Ministry described how raids froze activity during harvest. “In May, during the peak of our watermelon and cantaloupe season, it delayed it. A lot of crops did go to waste,” she said.
In Ventura County, California, farmer Lisa Tate has also seen the impact. While she is hesitant to blame immigration enforcement outright, she said farm crews shrank after a wave of ICE arrests. “People were being taken out of laundromats, off the side of the road,” Tate said.
Rodriguez added that construction sites in her region “are completely dead” as ICE increasingly targets day laborers. “We have a large labor force that is undocumented,” she said. “We’ve seen ICE particularly targeting construction sites and attempting to target mechanic and repair shops.”
National figures confirm the downturn. An analysis from the Associated General Contractors of America found that construction jobs declined in roughly half of U.S. metropolitan areas, with California hit particularly hard. “Contractors report they would hire more people if only they could find more qualified and willing workers and tougher immigration enforcement wasn’t disrupting labor supplies,” said the group’s chief economist, Ken Simonson.
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The labor squeeze extends to health care as well. Kramer of Pew pointed out that immigrants make up 43% of home health aides. Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU 2015 in California, said the risks are enormous: “What’s going to happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider? What happens when immigrants aren’t in the field to pick our crops? Who’s going to staff our hospitals and nursing homes?”
Despite Trump’s pledge to focus removals on “dangerous criminals,” most immigrants detained by ICE have no criminal record. Still, stricter enforcement has sharply reduced illegal border crossings, cutting off what economists say was a major driver of U.S. job growth.
“The influx across the border from what we can tell is essentially stopped, and that’s where we were getting millions and millions of migrants over the last four years,” said Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “That has had a huge impact on the ability to create jobs.”
For Lidia, however, the debate is personal. Now 36 and raising three U.S.-born children, she fears being sent back to a country her kids have never known. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring my kids,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m also very concerned I’d have to start from zero. My whole life has been in the United States.”
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