In the outskirts of Altadena, a city where one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history has just receded, a group of volunteers worked last week to collect branches and fallen tree leaves — removing fuel for potential future fires.
One of these individuals, Cesar, a Mexican immigrant in his 60s, works as a day laborer in construction, helping to build and renovate homes in Los Angeles. Although Cesar, who asked to be identified only by his first name, told CNN that he has been working in California for over 30 years, he is undocumented.
But now, the threat of mass deportations from President Donald Trump could lead to the loss of construction workers like Cesar — and could seriously hinder efforts to rebuild the more than 12,000 structures estimated to have been destroyed by the Los Angeles fires.
Homebuilders in Los Angeles told CNN that they anticipate that rebuilding the city after the destruction caused by the Palisades and Eaton fires will be a slow and challenging process.
The key to this effort is the day laborers, mostly undocumented, who often do the physically demanding and dangerous work of clearing debris after a natural disaster recedes.
Cesar and the rest of his cleanup crew are “second responders,” said Victor Narro, director of the UCLA Labor Center project. In the shadows, these workers have helped build the second-largest city in the United States, and after the destruction is cleared, they will help restore burned homes and businesses, Narro said.
“If there are deportations, who will do the work of this large immigrant workforce?” Narro questions.
Building in Los Angeles is already notoriously difficult due to a maze of permits and bureaucracy. Waiting for full payments from insurers can also delay the rebuilding process. Additionally, LA is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the United States. Now, with thousands of people displaced from their homes, some experts predict that the city’s real estate market will become even tighter and construction costs may rise.
Bob Kleiman, owner of a real estate construction company in Woodland Hills, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, expressed hope that the Trump administration will come to the conclusion that mass deportations could harm a city that has suffered from two of the most destructive fires in its history.Labor Shortage in Construction
More than one-third of construction workers in the U.S. are foreign-born, according to the 2023 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. California is tied with New Jersey for having the largest share of foreign-born workers in construction than any other state in the U.S., at 52%.
Although the Census Bureau does not directly ask about immigration status, the National Immigration Forum, an organization advocating for immigration reform, estimated that undocumented workers make up nearly a quarter of the country’s construction workforce.
Simply replacing these workers with legal American workers may not be a viable solution. Even with millions of undocumented people estimated to be in the country, there were 276,000 open jobs in construction in November, according to the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from more than 400,000 open jobs in this industry last year, but it is still a significant and difficult deficit to fill without immigrants.Source: CNN Text