Just outside the city of Altadena, California, where one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history had just been contained, a group of volunteers worked last week to collect branches and leaves from fallen trees — removing fuel for possible fires. futures.
One of these people, Cesar, a Mexican immigrant in his early 60s, works as a day laborer in construction, taking jobs where he helps build and renovate homes in Los Angeles.
Although Cesar, who asked only to be identified by his first name, told the CNN who has worked in California for over 30 years, he is an undocumented immigrant.
This means that, from the perspective of mass deportations in President Donald Trump’s second term, Cesar could be one of the lost construction workers – which could seriously hamper efforts to rebuild the more than 12,000 structures estimated to have been destroyed by flames.
THE CNN home builders in Los Angeles anticipated that rebuilding the city after the destruction caused by the Palisades and Eaton fires will be a slow and challenging process.
Key to this effort are the mostly undocumented day laborers who often do the physically taxing and dangerous work of clearing debris after a natural disaster recedes.
Cesar and the rest of his cleaning crew are “second responders,” said Victor Narro, project director for the Labor Center at the University of California. “In the shadows, these workers helped build the second largest city in the United States, and after the destruction is removed, they will help restore burned homes and businesses.”
“If there are deportations, who will do the work of this large immigrant workforce?” asked the researcher.
Building in Los Angeles is notoriously difficult due to a maze of permits and bureaucracy. Waiting for full payments from insurance companies can also delay the rebuilding process. Additionally, Los Angeles is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the United States. Now, with thousands of people displaced from their homes, some experts predict the city’s housing market will become even tighter and construction costs could rise.
“If Trump cracks down on illegal immigration, it will likely affect affordable housing,” said Dougal Murray, CEO of Racing Green Group, a custom home builder in Hollywood and Malibu. “People with a smaller budget will be more likely to work with unlicensed subcontractors or those who employ undocumented immigrants” due to the lower cost of hiring them.
Trump’s deportation effort
Bob Kleiman, owner of a home construction company in Woodland Hills, outside Los Angeles, said he was hopeful the Trump administration would come to the conclusion that mass deportations could harm a city recovering from two of the most destructive fires in your story.
“I’m optimistic that they won’t pull the rug out from under an already escalated situation,” Kleiman said. “I hope they don’t come up with something that’s going to add even more salt to that wound.”
Construction worker shortage
More than a third of construction workers in the U.S. workforce are foreign-born, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. California is tied with New Jersey as having the highest share of foreign workers in the construction trade of any U.S. state, at 52%.
Although the Department does not directly ask about immigration status, the National Immigration Forum, an organization that advocates for immigration reform, has estimated that undocumented workers make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. construction workforce.
Simply replacing these workers with legal American workers may not be a viable solution. Even with the estimated millions of undocumented people in the country, there were 276,000 open construction jobs in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number is lower than the more than 400,000 jobs opened last year, but it still represents a significant deficit.
Cameron Irwin, the owner of Cambuild Constructions, a home builder in the Altadena area, said he has noticed a shortage of skilled construction workers in Los Angeles.
“Building a house is exhausting. It’s hard work that requires a lot of physical labor,” Irwin said. “People are discovering that they can do something that pays similarly, and they don’t have to put in as much effort. That’s where undocumented workers come in.”
Irwin’s own home in Altadena was destroyed by fires earlier this month.
Cesar, the man who works as a day laborer in Los Angeles, told CNN who believes mass deportations would harm more than just individuals like himself.
“California is the fifth largest economy in the world. Part of this is due to the economic contributions of the immigrant community,” he said in an interview. “If these deportation threats are carried out, it would have a huge impact not just at the state level. It would be destructive.”
This content was originally published in Companies warn of lack of labor in the reconstruction of Los Angeles on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil

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