From citrus farms in Central Valley to construction sites where homes and businesses are being rebuilt after a catastrophic wildfire in Palisade, California, California, California relies heavily on immigrant workers and entrepreneurs.
As the Trump administration continues to strengthen immigration enforcement, new research shows that keys to the state’s $4 trillion economy, including agriculture, construction and hospitality, such as agriculture, construction and hospitality, could have been hit hardest by the loss of California’s migrant workforce.
Attacks the crisis are billions of dollars fueled by large and small businesses across the state, with its independent economy being the fourth largest in the world after the US, China and Germany.
A June survey by the Nonpartisan Bay Area Economics Institute and the University of California, Merced found that about a fifth of the state’s 10.6 million immigrants have not been documented.
If thousands of immigrants combined with the end of a temporary protection of more stringent border policies and mass deportation, the collaborative study estimated that California risks losing up to $278 billion from gross domestic product.
Abby Rice, research director at the Bay Area Economic Research Institute, said migrant workers are essential to strengthening the state’s economy, given the declining birth rate and the aging population.
“These are workers who are floating our economy. They keep businesses open,” Raisz told CNBC.
One of the most obvious places is in fields where food is grown and harvested, researchers and advocates say.
Agriculture, the state’s $49 billion industry, found that California’s most concentrated with immigrants and undocumented migrant workers, with 63% of immigrants and 24% of farm workers undocumented.
“Without them, we don’t have access to food,” said Joe Garcia, president of the California Association of Agricultural Workers and CEO of the Jaguar Labor Contract, which connects farm workers with growers.
“Lettuce, strawberries, all the wines we drink every day, fruit juices — picked by farm workers, packed, before harvest — they work to put food on your table all year round,” he said.
Garcia added that automation is not an option for many of these positions and that American-born workers are not interested in trying these jobs.
The Trump administration argues that the domestic labor market can withstand a shortage of migrant labor, saying its focus is on creating jobs for U.S. citizens.
“More than one in ten people in America are not employed in higher education or in certain types of vocational training,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in response to a study into the potential impact of large-scale deportation on California and its major industries.
“There is no shortage of America’s hearts and hands to boost our workforce, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration’s commitment to exploiting its undeveloped possibilities while submitting our mandate to enforce immigration laws.”
Ice effects
In downtown Los Angeles, businesses have been feeling waves of impacts associated with exaggerated ice attacks, protests and the deployment of the National Guard since June, owners and supporters said they have exacerbated the public’s perception that downtown Los Angeles is unsafe.
The independent hospitality coalition representing around 900 local businesses and workers in the Los Angeles area said the attacks have created a challenging atmosphere for businesses that have terrified migrant workers and have already faced a difficult battle for years.
“Covid, it was an international emergency that we were all dealing with. Here in California, especially here in Los Angeles, there’s been the recent fires in Pallisard and Altadena. Now, it’s the immigration situation we’re dealing with.
Courtney Kaplan owns three Los Angeles restaurants, including Camellia in the Downtown Arts area. She told CNBC due to closures and curfew that sales fell by 70% in June alone.
Her staff continues to come to work, but she weighs her as uncertainty about both immigration and trade policy relies on imported wine and liquor. Opentable data shows that the decline in meal reservations for everyone in Los Angeles fell by 3% from June 7th to 21st.
“The biggest challenge for us was daily uncertainty, aside from lost revenue and declining business. It was very unpredictable. It was confusing,” Kaplan told CNBC in July.
“We are very early in these changes in immigration policy so it’s hard to even predict what will come. Perhaps it’s the source of concern that our situation will change with the level of comfort for our team members.”
Workers shortage
Sectors such as construction and agriculture are staring at the shortage of workers ahead of changes in immigration policy. In California, more than 60% of construction workers are immigrants, a quarter of them are undocumented, a Bay Area Council report found.
“There is a deep lack of skills in these production industries, construction and manufacturing, because culturally, they don’t create these workers enough, and they don’t create them enough.
“The way we dealt with this over time was immigration. There are different characteristics of other cultures, cultures related to other countries. Many people there are willing to become skilled deals and we import that talent and improve our built environment.”
Contractors are primarily divided into two camps, he told CNBC. Some of them express their confidence and support for Trump, believing that the president’s strategy will encourage domestic manufacturing, investment and employment. Others are pessimistic as costs and uncertainty rise.
Regardless of the contractor’s outlook, the nature of California’s economy and its long-standing housing shortage means that the state is constantly in need of construction workers, Basu said.
“Even in times of tough economy, it’s in the midst of transformation,” he said.
