Deportations are disrupting Texas construction jobs and family finances

In a video from last summer, authorities pull over a man in South Texas on his way to a construction job. The man is handcuffed by authorities, and was later deported to Mexico.

His wife, Breana, is now left with managing her household without her co-parent, emotional support, and financial partner.

“Imagine taking away one salary when there were two,” she said in Spanish. “He was supporting [the family] with $500 a week, which for me was super good.”

Breana is a U.S. citizen, but because of her husband’s ongoing immigration case, we’re using a different name.

Without her husband’s income from construction work, she’s struggling to support her two daughters and pay rent and utilities on her $13.50 hourly wage. So she’s decided to move her family to Mexico.

Breana shared immigration documents that show the process her husband went through to come to the U.S., which included the help of a costly attorney.

“It’s very ugly,” she said, wiping away tears from her face. “We did things the right way.”

What happened to Breana’s family is not uncommon in Texas, as U.S. immigration officials have targeted foreign-born workers, including many who work in construction. These arrests and deportations have hurt homebuilders and the economic lives of workers and their families.

“This immigration enforcement is impacting their ability even to go to work, especially to just live regular lives, going to the grocery store, the doctor; they are afraid,” said Chidi Umez-Rowley, a director at the Workers Defense Project, which supports construction workers and their families in Texas.

“They still have to provide for their families and so they have to go to work to a certain extent, but they do that very cautiously,” she said.

That can mean taking different routes and being on alert. Documented workers may also carry paperwork with them at all times.

Homebuilder Ronnie Cavazos in the Rio Grande Valley has put up fences around his worksites to try to create a barrier between immigration officials and his workers. He said the fences help, but he can only do so much.

“If you're driving a van or if you're driving a work truck and there's a ladder in the back, or it remotely looks like you're in construction, you're gonna get pulled over. And so guys are afraid to come to work,” Cavazos said.

He said it’s not just undocumented workers who aren’t showing up.

“Even the ones who are documented [are like,] ‘I don't want to go, bro. I'm gonna get pulled over, and I'm gonna get harassed, and I might get taken in just because I need to prove that I'm now a citizen,’ and so that has obviously slowed down our workforce,” he said.

Cavazos said he doubts he’ll make a profit on his projects this year because of workforce shortages, delays and higher costs. But this is also personal for him.

“This is all I’ve ever done. My dad was a framer, also an immigrant from Mexico. In that time, he did it legally. It was easier to do it back then,” Cavazos said.

Across the country, roughly a third of construction tradesmen are foreign born, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Cavazos said he wonders about the next generation of construction workers if immigration officials continue to detain and deport this workforce.

“Who's gonna do this work?” he said. “Where are we going to source our labor from?”