New data reveals that the agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries are already being harmed by mass deportations
The predictable economic harms that stem from the targeting of essential immigrant workers are under way, according to a new analysis from leading economic experts. Michael Ettlinger, Robert Lynch and Emma Sifre of Economic Insights and Research Consulting write that as deportations ramp up, “we have started to see both widespread anecdotal reports and verifiable warning signs in the data that the economic harms predicted are being realized.”
That includes notable shifts in key industries that depend heavily on the skills and labor of immigrant workers and are critical to the nation’s economy, such as agriculture, which has seen employment plummet from March to July 2025. This reverses two years of growth seen toward the second half of the previous administration. “In addition, there are early signs that the labor shortages are starting to reduce production and boost food prices,” the report said.
“From March to July 2023, agricultural and related industries employment increased by 15,000, or 0.7%. From March to July 2024, agricultural and related industries employment increased by 49,000 or 2.2%.” But as the current administration has begun implementing its promised anti-immigrant agenda, employment numbers in these industries have remarkably shifted for the worse. “By contrast, from March to July 2025, agricultural and related industries employment decreased by 155,000 or -6.5%.”
While labor fluctuations can often be the result of weather patterns that affect the agricultural industry, there have been “many reports from the agricultural industry of substantial labor shortages because of the new immigration restrictions and deportations begun earlier this year,” the report noted.
Tony DiMare, a tomato grower in Florida, told Bloomberg this past January that “there’s no doubt” that the targeting of essential workers is “going to restrict and put pressure on farming and many other industries that rely on this workforce.” He said workers were already fleeing worksites. “A lot of people left Florida for Georgia, north, scared,” he noted. “Farmers had to let their crops rot.”
Meanwhile, employment in construction – another industry that relies so heavily on immigrant workers that in some parts of the U.S. entire work crews are all foreign-born – has dropped in the ten states with the highest reliance on undocumented workers. So have building permits, “a possible indication of investor and builder confidence that workers will be available to build buildings,” the report said. “The northeast, south, and west regions, all with at least 4.9% of their workforce comprised of unauthorized workers, have seen declines of 17%, 3% and 4% respectively, in permits through June 2025 relative to the same point in 2024.”
Robby Robertson, a construction site superintendent in Alabama, said he’s losing money after raids in nearby Florida scared off his own workers. “Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back,” Common Dreams reported. He added that he doesn’t think “raids are the answer.”
Construction work has long been a fundamental employer and a source of job creation for immigrant communities, housing expert Dr. Carlos Martín said in a 2016 report for the Urban Institute. Indeed, roughly 2.2 million construction workers are immigrants, representing a historic high according to Census figures. In the Baltimore and Washington region, immigrants make up nearly 40% of the construction workforce, specializing in carpentry, drywall, roofing, brick masonry, and painting.
“In some areas of the country, such as the Southwest, all work crews are immigrants,” Dr. Martín noted. “This trend is even more pronounced in some hazardous occupations, like construction laborers, roofers, and drywallers.”
When it comes to leisure and hospitality, employment growth fell to just 0.2% in high-immigrant states compared to 1.5% in other states, forcing neighborhood restaurants and local businesses to limit hours or close their doors, the economists said.
“Loss of a significant portion of this workforce would be particularly damaging as there is already a longstanding shortfall of workers in the industry,” the report said. “As of April 2025, there were nearly 1 million unfilled jobs in leisure and hospitality. There is both frequent anecdotal reporting of the industry being hurt by deportations and emerging evidence in the data.” In Nebraska, numerous restaurants in the state’s biggest cities said they’ve had to temporarily shut down due to the targeting of their workers.
“Every restauranteur is probably concerned about this whole immigration debacle we’re in at this time,” Omaha Fernando’s Café and Cantina owner Mitch Tempus tells Nebraska Public Radio. “We’re all trying to run our business and take care of our families and our employees.”
“If deportation numbers continue to stay at high levels or further accelerate, we also expect that national data will increasingly reflect economic injury from the policy, such as slowdowns in economic growth, higher unemployment rates, declines in business formation and broadly rising prices,” the economists concluded. “As has been seen in past mass deportations, these trends will damage the wellbeing of all Americans as well as non-citizen residents.”
Working families are already struggling with housing costs, grocery prices, and childcare, among other daily costs. Under mass deportation, it’ll only get worse.
