Trump Is Taking Immigration Crackdown to the Workplace. Businesses Need to Be Preparing for It.

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Battle on the Frontline: Maria’s Tale

Maria, a 48-year-old immigrant who has lived in Florida for years and worked as a cleaner of local schools for $13 an hour. She was bringing home about $900 every other week — just enough to cover rent on the small house she shares with five other families, not to mention electricity, groceries and essentials for her 11-year-old son.

 

Now, with ever-widening sweeps of immigration crackdowns by Trump, she is jobless. Speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of detention and possible deportation, she says that she now has only $5 in her bank account.

“I feel desperate. But I have no money to buy a thing.” I don’t have nothing,” she says softly.

Maria’s is one of several stories emphasizing the increasing tension between immigration enforcement and economic necessity.

 

The Trump administration’s

 strong stand on immigration enforcement, with moves like raids, visa restrictions and new requirements for employers to verify the status of their workforce, is roiling the labor force in an unexpected way: not by sending workers home or deterring them from coming, but erasing the one thing that overcomes language gaps and lets businesses talk with customers.

Agriculture, construction, hospitality and janitorial work — industries that depend on immigrants as their labor force — they’ve all said that they are hurting for workers. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of undocumented immigrants and even documented immigrant workers are staying away from their jobs for fear of raids or deportation — sudden absences that leave gaping holes in the work force.

Economists warn that this is occurring at a moment of particular vulnerability for the U.S. economy. Job creation, which has already been slowing down to some extent, may now slow even further as companies shelve plans to hire workers — and invest in the United States — amid uncertainty about immigration policy and global trade rules.

 

 

Effects on Foreign Talent and U.S. Competitiveness

But it is also undermining America’s well-deserved reputation as a global magnet for skilled professionals, experts say.

Tech companies, start-ups and universities have long benefited from recruiting foreign graduates and engineers under programs like the H-1B visa. But tougher visa checks and slower processing have caused many of them to rule out opportunities in the U.S.

Recruiters say they are fielding inquiries from more and more misfits skilled technologists who have a knack for pissing people off in their own organizations who used to dismiss them outright but now at least take them seriously. Steel yourself for yet more e-mails with the phrase “how’s the job search going?” But admit it: Those messages are getting a little bit shorter all the time, no?

“If foreign talent remains unfavored in both policy and perception, the U.S. risks compromising its competitive edge in innovation,” said an expert in human resources who is knowledgeable about international recruitment trends.

Employers Caught in the Middle

Businesses, too, are having a hard time adjusting. Many companies that have long depended on immigrant labor for critical jobs, from farms to factories, are struggling with disrupted systems and increased costs. Contractors in states including Florida, Texas and California say they are chronically understocked and struggling to be productive.

Some employers are also worried about the legal risks of hiring such workers. Facing stiffer audits, with more penalties at stake, companies are shedding longtime workers or turning to automation for jobs that may have helped sustain families — or entire towns or cities — in past decades.

But even these changes don’t suffice to cover the shortfall in manpower. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has consistently prodded the administration to weigh immigration enforcement against economic necessity, arguing that sectors of the economy vital to the country could suffer lasting harm should labour gaps remain unfilled.

Political and Social Fallout

While Trump’s advocates view the new immigration crackdown as a matter of national economic security, his detractors say it paints an incomplete picture. Most immigrants, they claim, contribute a great deal to the economy — in labor supply and as consumers.

Many economists emphasize that undocumented workers frequently do jobs Americans won’t — especially in physically demanding and low-paying sectors. Dislodging such workers, without a plan to replace them, could force prices higher and slow the economy.

The larger impact is not just economic. Not only are families being torn apart and communities now living in fear, the very social fabric of our immigrant neighborhoods is being shredded.

A Nation at a Crossroads

As the American political system tussles over the balance between border security and economic need, one thing is undeniably clear: The impact of Trump’s immigration policies is being felt across a wide and varied terrain. ​Whether it is Maria in Florida or the tech professionals abroad who are now contemplating their alternatives, there are signs from beyond America’s borders that the message of exclusion is traveling: The country’s muscular reorientation on immigration is not just remaking its labor market; it stands to damage America’s leading status as a hyperdiverse bastion of global cosmopolitanism.

Without a holistic approach that balances security with openness, experts say that the country will jeopardize its own economic growth and position as a place for the world’s brightest to work.