1.2 million immigrants are gone from the US labor force under Trump: preliminary data

It is the season of tomatoes and Lydia win on the farms in the center of the valley in California.

It is also anxious. Attention from the United States for Migration and Customs can increase its life more than 23 years after it illegally crossing it on the border between the United States and Mexico in adolescence.

“The anxiety is that they will pull you when you drive your car and ask your papers,” said Lydia, who spoke to Associated Press, provided that her first name is used only because of her deportation. “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”

Since the marches and other events celebrate workers’ contributions in the United States are held on Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say the immigration policies presented by President Donald Trump affect the country’s workforce.

More than 1.2 million migrants from the workforce disappeared from January to the end of July, according to the data of the First Statistical Office analyzed by the Pew Research Center. This includes illegal persons in the country as well as the legal population.

Immigrants make up nearly 20 % of the American workforce and that data shows 45 % of workers in agriculture, fishing and forests of immigrants, according to researcher researcher at Pio Stephanie Kramer. She added that about 30 % of all construction workers are migrants and 24 % of service workers immigrants.

The loss in migrant workers comes as the nation is witnessing the first decrease in the total number of migrant population after the number of people in the United States illegally reached the highest level ever in 2023.

Kramer said: “It is not clear the amount of decline we have seen since January due to the voluntary departure to follow other opportunities, avoid deportation, removal, reporting, or other technical issues,” said Kramer. “However, we do not believe that the primary numbers indicate the negative negative immigration are very far so that the decline is not real.”

Trump carried a promise to illegally deport millions of immigrants in the United States. He said he focused on deportation efforts on “dangerous criminals”, but most people detained by ICE do not have criminal convictions. At the same time, the number of illegal border crossings decreased under its policies.

Pia Orients, an economist at the Federal Reserve in Dallas, said that immigrants usually contribute at least 50 % of job growth in the United States

She said: “The flow across the border, which we can say, may stop mainly, and here we were getting millions and millions of immigrants over the past four years.” “This had a great impact on the ability to create jobs.”

“The crops went to waste”

Directly across the border of Mexico in Mcallen, Texas, Corn and Cotton Fields ready to harvest. Elizabeth Rodriguez is afraid that there will be not enough workers available to the valleys and other machines as soon as the fields are cleared.

Rodriguez, director of invitation to national workers in the Ministry of National Agriculture, said that the procedures for enforcement of immigration in farms, companies and construction sites have stopped working.

And she said: “In May, during the peak of the watermelon season and tattoo, the most recent. Many crops were lost.”

In Vinterora Province, California, northwest of Los Angeles, Lisa Tate runs her family works that grow fruits of citrus fruits, avocado and coffee on eight farms and 800 acres (323 hectares).

Most of the men and women who work their farms are workers on the contractor’s contractor. There were days earlier this year when the crews were smaller. Tate is hesitant to blame immigration policies. But the fear of ice raids spread quickly.

Dozens of farm workers in the region were arrested at the end of this spring.

“People were removed from the laundries, off the side of the road,” Tate said.

Lydia, the workers of the farmer who spoke to the AP through a translator, said that her greatest fear is sent to Mexico. Now 36, she is married to three school age children who were born here.

“I don’t know if I am able to bring my children,” said Lydia. “I am also very worried, I must start from scratch. My whole life was in the United States.”

From construction to health care

Rodriguez said the construction sites are in and around the two “completely dead.”

“We have a large working force,” she said. “We have seen the ice targeting construction sites in particular and trying to target mechanical stores and repair.”

The number of construction functions has decreased in about half of the American urban areas, according to the analysis of general contractors in America for government employment data. It was the largest loss of 7,200 jobs in the Riferside San Bernardino-Entario, California. The Los Angeles region lost 6200 jobs.

“The construction employment has stopped or has declined in many areas for several reasons,” said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the association. “But the contractors benefit that they will employ more people if they could not find more qualified and ready workers and that the most stringent immigration application did not give the work supplies.”

Kramer warns, with Pio, of the potential effect of health care. She says immigrants make up about 43 % of home health care assistants.

The International Service Federation represents about 2 million health care workers, the public sector and property. Arnolfo de la Cruz, the local president, said that about half of the long -term care workers who are members of the SEIU 2015 in California are immigrants.

“What will happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider?” De la Cruz said. “What happens when immigrants are not in this field to choose our crops? Who will do our hospital employees and elderly care homes?” ___ A previous version of this story incorrectly indicates the name of the American Immigration and Customs Agency. The name is not controlling immigration and enforcement.