Homebuilders Say ICE Crackdowns Are Making It Hard to Find Workers

Builders are raising the ICE issue unprompted

Immigrants make up more than a quarter of the U.S. construction workforce and more than half of workers in several key homebuilding trades, according to an Axios analysis of National Association of Home Builders data. Homebuilders now say stepped-up ICE enforcement is making it hard to find workers, lengthening build times and pushing up labor costs.

The reliance is concentrated in the trades that finish houses. Foreign-born workers account for 57% of drywall and ceiling installers, 56% of plasterers and stucco masons, 53% of roofers, 53% of painters and 51% of carpet, floor and tile installers, per the NAHB analysis of 2024 Census Bureau data. Overall, immigrants were 26.3% of the construction workforce.

What builders are reporting

In a survey by John Burns Research and Consulting that asked only about construction cycle times, builders in Houston, Richmond and Jacksonville volunteered complaints about ICE without being asked. "All we asked about on the topic in our survey was construction cycle times," said Rick Palacios, the firm's director of research. "The comments on 'ICE and immigration' were completely unsolicited."

One Virginia builder said ICE "has had significant impacts to vendors throughout Virginia/Maryland in the last 90 days" and a "major impact on cycle times and the ability to start new houses." A Florida builder said deportation efforts are straining "the labor force, labor costs and cycle times." ICE arrests hit a record 50,925 in August.

An already tight industry

The labor squeeze lands on top of elevated mortgage rates, tariff-driven input costs and competition for workers from data center construction. The NAHB's builder confidence index for newly built single-family homes fell to 32 in September, deep in pessimistic territory, with builders citing material costs, labor shortages and affordability.

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How this could hit the options market

Labor is the swing factor for builder margins and for housing supply, which makes the public builders a clean way to trade the enforcement story. Watch DHI, LEN, PHM and the homebuilder fund XHB around the monthly NAHB confidence print and any ICE worksite-enforcement headlines; the September confidence reading of 32 says expectations are already low, so evidence that labor is stabilizing could move the group more than another bad headline.

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