Trump's deportation vow alarms Texas construction industry

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

November 23, 2024 5:01 AM ET


Clear signals President-elect Donald Trump plans to make good on his campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in his second term has sparked concerns among some in Texas' business and economic sectors who say mass deportations could upend some of the state's major industries that rely on undocumented labor, chief among them the booming construction industry.

"It would devastate our industry, we wouldn't finish our highways, we wouldn't finish our schools," said Stan Marek, CEO of Marek, a Houston-based commercial and residential construction giant. "Housing would disappear. I think they'd lose half their labor." Talk of a mass round up comes as Texas is booming. Texas cities regularly appear on lists of the country's fastest growing communities, and construction cranes and workers donning safety vests are common sites in most major cities.

That Texas relies on undocumented labor is one of the state's open secrets, despite Republicans' tough-on-immigration stances. In 2022, more than a half million immigrants worked in the construction industry, according to a report by the American Immigration Council and Texans for Economic Growth. Nearly 60% of that workforce was undocumented.

"The state needs to leverage both U.S.-born and immigrant talent to fill construction jobs that power the Texas economy," the report notes. "It's not remotely practical to round up and deport everybody," said economist Ray Perryman, the president and CEO of the Waco-based Perryman Group.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2024/11/23/g-s1-35465/trump-deportation-migrants-immigrants-texas-construction-industry-border-security

---

Guess what? That's what you wanted and you will get your prize with your "ownage of the libs."

[Henry203]

1. Deport them

Watch businesses collapse. Perfect.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Not very progressive to advocate collapsing businesses (esp small construction biz) and deportations. . . . nt

[Tumbulu]

19. No one is advocating for mass deportations

Except T and his base.

And there is nothing to be done about it since they have complete control of Congress and I might add, Texas.

Advocating that people get what they ran on is not anything but being frank. Let them harvest what they have sown.

F*ck around and find out time.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

38. Henry203 wrote "Deport them", did not qualify or /sarc but did call it "perfect". . . . . nt

[DiamondShark]

39. MAGA the party of FAFO.

This is the Find Out half.

[kevinore]

76. Rooting for or against the construction biz

The conservative business people who put Trump and Project 2025 in office had all the information they needed to see this coming. They chose to ignore it. They put a wannabe fascist dictator, whose plans guarantee economic disaster and they knew it would happen. Unfortunately, those of us who paid attention are about to get hammered by the decision they made. If they lose their businesses, and their jobs and safety nets, it is what they asked for and it's what they have inflicted on the rest of us.

As a progressive, I do not want to see anybody suffer from this foolishness... but...the MAGA cultists begged for harm to some of the most vulnerable people in the US. If they suffer the consequences of their actions, so be it. FAFO.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

81. I agree. You put it very well. "If they suffer the consequences of their actions, so be it. FAFO."

Your whole post was written very well. I will not shed a tear for MAGAs being victim of MAGA.

I wonder if the poster I first responded to may have had similar sentiments, but posted clumsily as a new poster. If one is going to be terse, one has to be clear or it might come out kind of backwards.

[Marthe48]

85. I saw the OP as sarcastic

n/t

[we can do it]

84. I hope they get the prez they voted for.

[peregrinus]

91. Small construction businesses

Yeah right 😆

[gay texan]

33. The only way we get rid of the GOP

Is to make it painful for everyone. Its the only way to wake people up

[aggiesal]

78. Texas forgot to take their Irony Deficient tablets ...

Hypocrites, all of them.

[VMA131Marine]

2. Oh no! If it isn't the consequences of their own actions

coming back to bite them.

And it won’t just be construction affected; agriculture and hospitality will get hit hard too.

[JT45242]

62. And airports...how many luggage handlers and crown crews

DFW is a major hub. Flown threw there multiple times in the last few months.

[LeftInTX]

95. I doubt if airlines/airports hire them.

[HappyLarge]

75. Not just them either.

Childcare, elder care, meat processing, poultry processing….the list goes on.

[Strelnikov_]

3. FAFO

Whoopsi doopsi

Too bad, so sad.

Face, meet Leopard.

[Bengus81]

4. LOL.....bet the Google search for "can I change my vote?" is going even higher than a couple of weeks ago

Trump won Texas by 14%. Well....they wanted that demigod,get ready for what's coming in late January.

[RockRaven]

5. Texas, you voted for this, so fuck your feelings & your economy/infrastructure.

[gay texan]

34. Um....

Some of us are stuck here

[RockRaven]

63. Yep. Although one could swap "Texas" for "The USA" and it would still be true.

As would your rejoinder.

We're screwed and we did it to ourselves and each other, and nobody outside is going to say anything different, nor save us from what we have done.

[kimbutgar]

6. I don't give a shite about Texas they voted repuke they get what they deserve.

[Ocelot II]

7. ....

[SunSeeker]

8. NOW they're alarmed? They knew this before they voted for him!

[cksmithy]

9. What if they had to have a person ready, paper work all done,

to replace the position of the person they were trying to deport before, they could deported anybody. They would soon find out very quickly no one would would work those jobs for the pay they were making. It will never happen, but it could make some people actually face a little bit of reality.

[ananda]

10. Funny, today I was just thinking how deportation..

would harm the infrastructure of Texas.

I mean, who builds the buildings, who works on
roads and bridges, who cleans up after natural
disasters, and of course who does the agriculture
and childcare, and cleaning?

I was wondering what rich people will do when
they can't find nannies?

Hmmm

[Thunderbeast]

11. The cretins don't care.

They value their hate over feeding their families.

When the layoff notices come, and they can't afford food, they will search for ways to blame this on the dems.

None of them will go to work in the fields or slaughterhouses.

Hard work is too demeaning for god-fearing white Texans.

[Nigrum Cattus]

12. Same as most of the U.S.

After almost 5 decades in the construction business, I agree.
You think houses are expensive now, just wait. The cost of
a home or commercial building, not including the land, is 75-80
percent LABOR. Not only will all building cost more it will also
be less available.

[k55f5r]

35. At least wages will rise for construction workers.

There is going to be a major shortage of workers in the US shortly.

[Evolve Dammit]

13. Self-inflicted recession coming?

[sheshe2]

14. Welp...Ooopsie.

He was clear on what he was planning, you voted for him anyway. Your Governor, that you keep re-electing, did too! He has been bussing them out to blue states for years! Looks you F’ed around and found out. This on you.

Boo effig hoo.

[Hekate]

69. The people I actually feel sorry for are the workers and their children. Hell's bells. All over this benighted land...

Undocumented people from South of our own border have been the perennial scapegoats for at least a century. I feel so disgusted — and I know you know what I am talking about.

[sheshe2]

71. I hear ya.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Deportations will be strongest in cooperative red states like Texas. . . . nt

[Yavin4]

17. America has always relied upon a peasant class.

Always has. Always will.

[patphil]

20. Funny how great it sounded when Trump was saying it at his Rally's.

Not so great when the implications of deporting millions of working people hit home.
If Trump succeeds, we'll see a huge crash in the economy due to all those unfilled job openings that we don't have workers to fill. That will result in even more people out of work, as all the businesses that were dependent on the missing labor and the wages that are no longer out there supporting the economy, feel the pinch.
Many businesses could go bankrupt, igniting an economic fire that could burn through the economy and result in a depression.
I wonder how Donnie will spin that one...blame it on the Democrats?
Of course.

[orangecrush]

21. I feel so owned

Cry me a river, assholes.

[SpankMe]

22. It'll affect a lot more than construction

And it'll affect a lot more than Texas.

It could go one of two ways: 1. The economy would suffer severely and they'd have to back-track on this whole deportations thing (and hopefully lose elections). Or, 2. Capitalism will "come through for us" and the affected industries will adapt and converge to a new normal.

Even if condition 2 prevails, it won't be better than the status quo, just different - fewer brown people.

White supremacist assholes will wield more power than ever in the Trump 2.0 era. Mass deportation is a part of it.

[SWBTATTReg]

23. And construction isn't going to be the only industry impacted. Farmers and their harvests will be impacted too, for

lack of workers to maintain or pick the crops. Folks won't be able to get their yards mowed or maint. done around the yard. Roofs won't get replaced. Those favorite Mexican and/or other nationalities won't be able to stay open or will suffer in quality as the help and cooks and waitstaff flees.

And they seem to think that we have an endless supply of other people to backfill these jobs. We don't.

Idiots. Just damn fools and idiots. I hope that they suffer when they can't buy their groceries anymore at the cheaper prices they did before.

[TexasBushwhacker]

56. Who's going to clean the rooms at Trump's hotels? N/t

[eppur_se_muova]

64. tsf has hired dozens of undocumented workers at his properties, and may have hired hundreds ...

... on his construction projects.

The word "hypocrisy" has Greek roots, suggesting behavior which is literally "beneath criticism", indicating something so obviously self-serving it does not even merit a critical debate.

Being accused of, or openly engaging in hypocrisy, carries no political price whatever in today's GOP, or apparently, much of the voting public. It used to be a fairly potent charge in public life.

Hypocrisy is the practice of feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not.[1] The word "hypocrisy" entered the English language c. 1200 with the meaning "the sin of pretending to virtue or goodness".[2] Today, "hypocrisy" often refers to advocating behaviors that one does not practice. However, the term can also refer to other forms of pretense, such as engaging in pious or moral behaviors out of a desire for praise rather than out of genuinely pious or moral motivations.

Definitions of hypocrisy vary. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one's own expressed* moral rules and principles.[3] According to British political philosopher David Runciman, "other kinds of hypocritical deception include claims to knowledge that one lacks, claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold".[4] American political journalist Michael Gerson says that political hypocrisy is "the conscious use of a mask to fool the public and gain political benefit".[5]

Hypocrisy has been a subject of folk wisdom and wisdom literature from the beginnings of human history. Increasingly, since the 1980s, it has also become central to studies in behavioral economics, cognitive science, cultural psychology, decision making, ethics, evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, political sociology, positive psychology, social psychology, and sociological social psychology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

*AS DISTINGUISHED FROM one's ACTUAL moral rules and principles, SHOULD THEY EXIST.

[Hekate]

70. People from Slavic countries, as he has often done before

[Lunabell]

79. Meat processing plants and other jobs, too.

Mostly owned and run by republicans. In Springfield, Ohio, they gave the Haitians a special visa just to work in the US. Then, they scapegoated them. It's really disgusting.

[SWBTATTReg]

92. Thanks and YES. I grew up in Joplin MO and the meatpacking plants were the big thing. I don't know why I forgot this

so thanks for the heads up. There are tons of jobs that I'm sure that we haven't thought of yet. The biggest one is during harvest time, and I recall that when Alabama passed a law w/ a real restrictive citizenship requirement, they (Alabama) had crops rotting in the fields and I'm sure that the farmers etc. were hurting.

When you have such a high employment number, and you do any little thing w/ this, the impact can be huge. These idiots who pass these ignorant laws need to step back and look at the whole picture. Good grief, there's an idiot being born every day...

BY JULIE STRUPP
MAY 14, 2012
On Sunday, the Associated Press reported worker shortages have prompted some Alabama farmers who grow labor-intensive produce to plant less, rather than have crops rot in the fields again this year. Last fall Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed a tough law combating illegal immigration, which prompted undocumented workers to flee the state. Few locals will perform the grueling work of picking crops, and farmers stuck in a agricultural system built on illegal labor are struggling to find replacements before their produce rots.

ME: Georgia did this too!

Alabama’s situation is not unique. Georgia passed a similar immigration law in 2011. When undocumented workers fled, farmers lost around 40% of their workers and $140 million worth of blueberries, melons, onions, and other crops due to labor shortages. This year Georgia farmers again fear they will be short on workers to pick the crops, and many have scaled back production or stopped planting altogether.

[Blue Full Moon]

24. Didn't one of the Texas

Government officials send a letter to Trump to have the deportation camps built in Texas?

[ShazzieB]

25. Wow.

It's amazing to me that Stan Marek, the Texas construction industry leader quoted here, seems not to have ever noticed how hostile to immigrants the government of his state is.

Mr. Marek, if these people are so vitally important to the work you do there in Texas, why is it that your governor can't get seem to rid of them fast enough? Maybe you need to have a little chat with Greg Abbott.

I'm getting the feeling that an awful lot of the people who voted for Trump didn't really want all of the undocumented immigrants to be deported, just the new arrivals. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise, he told you all along that's what he was planning to do.

Please step up and stick your face right in here:

[ReRe]

26. My first thought

was, yeah! Take down Texas!

[mercuryblues]

27. Wait a minute

Just a few weeks ago Biden's policies were devastating America.

But today we see this gem...

" Talk of a mass round up comes as Texas is booming.

So, is the economy booming or in dire straits?

And Texans will happily drink the orange Flavor Aide.

Get those billionaires away from their private country clubs and give them a hammer. Somebody gotta build the houses.

[Diamond_Dog]

28. .....

[keithbvadu2]

29. Congratulations, Texas. You got what you wanted... Trump.

[getagrip_already]

30. Destroying the economy is part of the plan....

It is a feature, not a bug.

It will lead to mass protests in urban areas that can then be cut off and turned into ghettos a la warsau. Thats after the militias fire their machine guns of course.

Put millions out of work. Destroy the supply chain and logistical networks. Shred the financial system. Stop food deliveries.

Collapse will follow.

They believe they can rebuild the way they want.

[calimary]

66. And with these people, I bet more than a few of them assume they won't feel a thing.

I guess maybe we'll see.

[dweller]

31. Laughs and laughs

Last edited Sat Nov 23, 2024, 06:08 PM - Edit history (1)

in Deporteese

😐


✌🏻

[TexLaProgressive]

32. Many think that undocumented labor is only agricultural

But many are highly skilled and competent in all the building trades. They also are doing food processing, restaurants as chefs, expert dangerous tree removal and more.

It's not just that construction and farm work that would suffer but a whole host of skill labor lost.

[dtTwitch]

45. *if* they are deported

if we want to be totally dark.
there may be troubles actually getting a country to accept them, or the paperwork could get slowed.
I could see the cries of "put them to work" being whipped up.
These skilled workers would all be in a concentrated places, and we already have a prison labor pipeline.

[FakeNoose]

51. The highly skilled immigrants have visas, and some are even naturalized citizens

They're protected by their US employers, I have no doubts. It's the ones we used to call "wetbacks" (apologies) who come here with few skills and no promises of employment. They are just willing to work hard and hoping for the best. That's who Chump wants to kick down and out.

[TexLaProgressive]

54. I'm not referring to white collar STEM workers.

I’m taking about highly skilled blue collar workers - most do not have documentation.

[eppur_se_muova]

65. The meat packing industry is especially notorious for this. During the COVID pandemic ...

... meat packers were forcing workers to work elbow-to-elbow on production lines with no change in the usual procedures to protect against spreading the disease. The consequences were exactly what you'd expect, many fatalities included.

Tanning and leather processing (likely connected pretty closely to the same slaughterhouses as meat packing) is, IIRC, another industry which is heavily reliant on undocumented immigrant labor. I seem to recall reading something here on DU about a company which had contracts to manufacture leather gear for the US military being found to employ large numbers of undocumented workers. Apparently, these plants are occasionally reported to INS and raided just as a contract lot is completed and ready for shipping ... just before those last paychecks go out. Hmmmmm.

[Hekate]

72. And their underage children....

[eppur_se_muova]

74. That too ! So hard to keep up ... nt

[delisen]

36. They were silent until now?

They probably supported the Republican governor and other Republicans in Texas and Trump

[Rebl2]

37. Mess around

and find out I guess

[Paladin]

40. Back off, DU Texas Haters.

You're not entitled to the usual trashing of my state any longer, given the way this election turned out. Direct your anger and insults at the states that trump shouldn't have won---Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and way too many others.

Damn near 5 million Texans voted Democratic this time around; as always, I was one of them.

[33taw]

73. WI voted for Trump by .91 percent. Our Governor, SOS, and AG are democrats.

Last edited Sun Nov 24, 2024, 09:10 AM - Edit history (1)

We re-elected a Democratic senator. flipped the Supreme Court to liberal, they restored reproductive rights and ended gerrymandering. The Governor and AG have vowed to protect our civil rights against theTrump admin. We also broke a Senate supermajority. We still have work to do and many corporate farms will be impacted by tariffs but they voted for Trump and I have no compassion for them. How is Texas doing?

[liberalgunwilltravel]

41. Fuck Texas

Please, Mexico, take this spit hole back!

[tulipsandroses]

42. They don't need schools in Texas anyway. All they need are bibles

What's the problem?

[Sparky 1]

43. A lot of American voters are going to learn some hard lessons about . . .

. . . why they should find more reliable news sources, and pay better attention. Civics 101 should be a required highschool course and should stress how and why every American needs to be well-informed before voting. Don't they teach this anymore?

[Evolve Dammit]

44. I'll bet it does. They rely on these hard workers to get construction done. n/t

[zorbasd]

46. Don't worry red states, its the blue states

he's after, especially CA. Time to resist mightily.

[Orrex]

47. If only he'd made this clear before those Red Texans voted for him en masse

[turbinetree]

48. Hey Stan Marek, CEO of Marek, did you not read or hear what Mary Trump said about her uncle..............

I have no time for you and others that are now whining, how much money did you contribute to his and the Cruz campaign and other maga slobs..............................

[C Moon]

49. And add tariffs on top of that.

[sakabatou]

50. "I didn't know the leopard would eat my face!"

[RandySF]

52. Some people are too stupid to vote.

Supporting candidates who hurt their businesses.

[RandySF]

53. How many MAGA whites

will work without a heat break?

[bee_peaceful]

55. Now a warning? NT

[moose65]

58. Haha

My favorite line from Death Becomes Her

[wolfie001]

57. Nothing is more idiotic than a racist white voter

[chouchou]

59. I remember CBS blasting with happiness November 6

"Trump's margin of victory in Texas is the largest for a president-elect in 20 years"
Suck it up cowgirl and boys. Bite my ass, Hillbillies..

[drray23]

60. Another case of the car chasing dog who suddenly caught the car and not sure what to do next.nt.

[synni]

61. The voters made their beds

Now it's time for these people to lie awake in them.

[Initech]

67. Texas voted heavily for the fucking asshole. You could have chosen better.

[William Gustafson]

68. Who couldn't see this coming.... lol

[Bread and Circuses]

77. The Felon will send the Immigration Black Books to Blue States

My theory is that The Felon will flood California with agents to round up brown people, no matter their country of origin or citizenship. They’ll make a big show of it, and go to the border and take photos. His pals in Texas and Arizona know that he may do a few roundups but not many.

[Roy Rolling]

80. So sad...not

[duncang]

82. I knew the Mareks back in the 60-70's

Did a quick search and see he’s been pushing for something similar to the DACA program for working adults for a long time. He is a republican. No idea if he supported tfg this time but he did speak out against mass deportation under tfg the first time.

[Old Crank]

83. When they roiund up the undocumented

they need to charge the employers also.
That is the only way to stop the hiring. Throw those crooks in jail.

[Old Crank]

86. Did my own research. Penalties for hiring and

aiding and abbetting. Go after the businesses. Make sure businesses have the ID required to hire. Sen the owners to jail.

https://www.guzman.law/punishment-aiding-abetting-illegal-alien-texas/#:~:text=Aiding%20and%20abetting%20an%20illegal%20alien%20in%20Texas%20is%20a,you%20are%20working%20for%20profit.

[FakeNoose]

87. So this is an advertisement, not a news story

The guy who placed this ad on the internet is a lawyer - Javier Guzman - who is looking to represent firms that have been charged by the government for hiring illegal aliens. Mr. Guzman is probably Spanish-speaking which would be a plus for many of these companies.

He will be making a lot of money in the next few years - that's my guess.

[Old Crank]

89. Some lawyers post self written information articles

I would expect he may get more work. But hopefully the information about the laws are correct.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

88. YES some of us been saying this for decades go after illegal EMPLOYERS and watch the "problem"

get solved in a new york minute - whole immigration system would instantly get updated to allow temporary work visas The reason they dont is that then THEY WOULD HAVE TO FOLLOW laws about pay, work conditions, etc. They LIKE their employees to be undocumented and have no recourse. Some of these actively recruit employees in Mexico, central/south America, saying if you can get here we have a job for you.

[Old Crank]

90. Yes

People won't be here working if there is no one to employ them.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

93. The Texas construction industry will be devastated by the deportations

[LeftInTX]

94. Still?

I know when we got a new roof awhile back noone spoke English, but I assumed they were here on visas.
Back in the day, (70s-80s) they gave strong cultural hints that they had just arrived. We couldn't walk outside without getting whistled at. They would stop everything and stare. They don't do that anymore. So, I just thought they were new citizens or something

[maxrandb]

96. Don't worry you fucking Texas fascists

He'll start in the Blue States and send their immigrants to his Texas Concentration Camps.

You'll have all the workers you'll need, and fucking dirt cheap too!

So, I guess that will be "all good", huh?