Washington, DC – Two industries central to the American economy – cattle groups and homebuilders – are sounding the alarm on Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s mass deportation campaign.
Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, issued the following statement:
“Donald Trump’s mass deportation ICE machine is feeling the heat from cattle, construction and other industry leaders concerned about soaring prices and an increasingly unstable workforce. Trump promised to lower costs, but his mass deportation machine is driving up the price of everything from a hamburger to a home. Ranchers and home builders across the country are delivering the same clear warning, yet the administration refuses to listen. Trump and his allies have sent armed and masked agents after the workers who feed and house this country, leaving families at the grocery checkout and families priced out of the housing market to foot the bill. Chaos has a price, and American families are paying it. Lawmakers who voted to bankroll this machine cannot pretend to be surprised by the damage. Congress must rein in ICE and deliver real solutions for essential workers and the industries that depend on them.”
Last week, cattle groups in Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma warned that ICE operations are having a “massive chilling effect” on the workers who keep the beef supply chain running. Thousands of cattle bound for processors have been left in limbo by delays in shipping costing the industry millions in lost revenue, with beef prices already at record highs.
According to the Kansas Livestock Association, some meatpacking plants in Dodge City, Liberal, and Garden City temporarily shut down and returned cattle to feedlots. “We urge federal officials to conduct enforcement actions in a lawful, orderly, and transparent manner; respect due process; and communicate clearly with affected employers and communities,” the organizations said in their statement.
Home builders face the same damage. Immigrants make up more than a quarter of the construction workforce, and the industry is already facing a deficit of roughly 300,000 workers. According to the National Association of Home Builders, immigration enforcement is keeping crews off job sites, delaying builds, and raising costs amid an existing national shortage of roughly 1.2 million homes. In a recent amicus brief, NAHB argued that the administration’s mandatory detention policy is forcing project cancellations and further shrinking the inventory of available homes. America’s Voice’s End the ICE Tax report found the same pattern: in the five states most reliant on immigrant labor, construction employment fell 1.3 percent while it grew 3.3 percent in the rest of the country, and new-home prices in the Northeast climbed 15.4 percent.
The fallout is so severe that even Republican lawmakers who voted to pour billions into ICE are now demanding the agency coordinate with local law enforcement in Kansas, with one acknowledging that ICE’s operations there caused “mass disruptions to local communities and businesses.” From feedyards to job sites, American businesses, workers, and consumers are feeling the strain of the administration’s deportation agenda.
To learn more about the economic harms of mass deportation, read our End the ICE Tax report.
