A group of workers is carrying shingles atop the roof of a one-story red brick house in East Dallas.
One worker hauls a pile of shingles over his shoulder, while another lays them down on the roof one by one.
“On a typical day like this you're gonna be here all day you know from 6:45 all the way until we finish,” said Jose Reyes, a contractor who owns the roofing company working on the site.
It's a hard job — and one that's been made more difficult by the Trump administration's crackdown on people living in the U.S. without legal status. Reyes said in the past year some of his employees have been deported.
“People that had, you know, they were making honest living, they had families, kids, some of them even expecting, you, know, another one,” Reyes said.
It’s the human cost of ramped up immigration enforcement that’s happening at a national level, said John Martinez with the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association.
“The men and women who get up and build our homes, our roads, our schools, our hospitals," he said at a press conference earlier this month that addressed how immigration policy could influence future elections, "and every day they get up not knowing are they going to come back to their families,” said John Martinez with the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association.
He told KERA there’s also an economic cost: In construction, time is money.
“When we lose productivity is when people hear about ICE raids and things like that and they don't show up to work," he said. "And in commercial construction there's penalties if projects don't finish on time."
When building projects have built-in incentives or fines, there can be a domino effect if there are interruptions, he said. Ultimately, any additional cost gets passed on to the consumer.
“So, if you think that, 'Hey, I'm so lucky, I don't have a mixed-use house, I don't have friends that are immigrants' and stuff, you're not escaping the cost, right?" Martinez said. "It's coming to your door."
Construction workers are essential to the growing North Texas economy. Their labor is crucial as the region experiences a population boom and needs more housing.
A recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says around 1 in 5 Texas businesses are struggling to hire and retain foreign-born workers because of the changes in immigration policy. The fed added this could also amplify the ongoing labor shortage in the construction industry – which, in Texas, is about 38% foreign born.
There’s also an impact on the workers themselves – people in the country without legal status are more vulnerable to exploitation by some businesses, said David Chincanchan with the advocacy organization Workers Defense Project.
“That is a really big issue in Texas already," Chincanchan said. "Wage theft is rampant, misclassification of workers is rampant, folks often work in dangerous working conditions."
When workers are fearful of being deported at their workplace on a daily basis, they’re even more prone to being taken advantage of.
“For immigrant workers, that is really exacerbated by ... immigration-related threats or actions,” Chincanchan said.
Jose Reyes, who owns the roofing company, said his work sites haven’t been the target of raids — and his employees are still showing up to the job.
“They know that they have to go out and pay the bills, right, and make a living,” Reyes said. "You can try to live in fear but that's not going to stop anybody from going out and pursuing that dream, right?"
Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’s growth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at parauzpena@kera.org.
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