Secure borders. A stronger economy. Washington must deliver both

In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, business leaders at residential construction and development companies were, in effect, summoned to the nation’s capital for an all-hands meeting with administration officials on housing affordability. The summons came on short notice, on a Sunday afternoon. Or else.

The Washington, D.C., meeting never took place. But the episode captured the breakneck pace and take-no-prisoners approach of those early, flood-the-zone months. It also dialed in a distinctly unsettling tone for the rules of engagement between the new administration and the nation’s private-sector business leaders in one of the economy’s critical engines: homebuilding.

Now, following the 2026 midterm elections, those rules of engagement stand an opportunity to change.

Business leaders, including corporate strategists and their representatives on Capitol Hill, have a window to act quickly, elevate their priorities, and press for policy changes that have damaged or threaten to undermine some of the nation’s most important economic capabilities.

For homebuilding, residential development, and residential investment, immigration enforcement belongs near the top of the agenda.

The United States needs secure borders and enforceable immigration laws. It also needs the workforce capacity to build homes, grow food, manufacture products, and sustain economic growth. These are not competing national interests, and treating them as such has real economic consequences.

The question for President Trump, the incoming Congress, and the business leaders with a stake in the outcome is whether the next two years can achieve a more rational, workable balance among those objectives.

For the housing industry, evidence of what’s at risk is already accumulating.

When enforcement collides with production

Over recent months, HousingWire TBD has documented the increasingly disruptive effects of immigration enforcement on residential construction businesses and their trade partners.

Builders and contractors report job site interruptions, workers reluctant to report for work, and crews disappearing from construction schedules. In some affected markets, executives have reported reductions of 60% to 80% in available trade crews. These are accounts from specific businesses and markets, not nationwide estimates.

The disruption also extends beyond workers who lack legal authorization. Reports that U.S. citizens and legally authorized workers are apprehensive about reporting to job sites suggest that enforcement-related fear can diminish workforce availability and productivity.

Residential construction depends on the coordinated sequencing of specialized trades. When a framing crew is unavailable, subsequent work may be delayed, schedules are extended, financing costs accumulate, and closings slip.

For builders and their trade partners operating with already compressed margins and limited capital flexibility, repeated disruptions can pose a serious business risk.

These accounts do not establish that immigration enforcement has caused a nationwide construction crisis. They do, however, raise a question policymakers cannot responsibly ignore: Are enforcement practices achieving legitimate security objectives while imposing avoidable economic costs on lawful workers, responsible employers, and American households?

The workforce evidence is unmistakable

A study published on October 8 by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that foreign-born workers accounted for 35% of the nation’s construction trades workforce in 2024, compared with 18% of the overall U.S. labor force.

Their representation is especially high in trades critical to home completion: 57% of drywall and ceiling-tile installers, 53% of roofers and painters, and 51% of flooring installers were foreign-born.

Harvard’s research found that foreign-born workers accounted for all net growth in the construction trades workforce from 2013 to 2024.

Separate NAHB research found that Hispanic workers represented 32.8% of the construction workforce in 2024, up from 23.6% in 2010. In Texas and California, approximately six in 10 construction workers are Hispanic.

Foreign-born status, Hispanic ethnicity, citizenship, and legal employment authorization are distinct characteristics. These statistics cannot be used interchangeably to describe immigration status. Nor do they, nor can they, truly reflect the full impact of foreign-born workers on job site capability and productivity because many undocumented frontline crew members are not counted at all.

The statistics, however, illustrate the industry’s substantial dependence on a diverse workforce, whose lawful participation must be protected.

Meanwhile, labor shortages are worsening despite reduced housing production. NAHB’s September 2026 survey found that, averaged across nine consistently tracked trades, 47% of builders reported labor shortages, up from 42% in April 2025. Framing shortages reached 57%, while finished carpentry shortages reached 58%.

NAHB also identified immigration-enforcement-related worker apprehensions as a contributor to worsening shortages, along with competition from other construction sectors.

Immigration enforcement did not create the industry’s longstanding workforce problems. Those problems reflect decades of insufficient domestic workforce development, shifting demographics, competition for skilled labor, and limited productivity gains. But making an already constrained workforce even less available cannot be a rational part of a national housing affordability strategy.

A workable policy foundation is already in place

Washington does not need to start from scratch.

Bipartisan immigration reform initiatives have repeatedly recognized the need to combine effective border security, lawful employment pathways, immigration-system modernization, and solutions for established workers and employers.

NAHB’s comprehensive immigration reform policy, updated in November 2025, provides a practical foundation for the industry. It supports border security and effective enforcement, along with construction-specific visa reforms, legal workforce pathways, and domestic workforce development.

The association has also endorsed the bipartisan DIGNITY Act, which would strengthen border security while establishing conditional pathways to lawful employment for certain undocumented workers who meet defined requirements.

These proposals involve difficult choices and legitimate disagreements. They show that practical approaches exist beyond the familiar binary choice between unrestricted enforcement and abandoning enforcement altogether.

Three expectations for Washington

The remaining weeks of the current Congress and the next two years should be evaluated against three governing objectives.

First, the administration must enforce immigration laws while protecting lawful employment and upholding due process. Enforcement priorities, worker-identification procedures, and accountability mechanisms should minimize unnecessary disruption to legitimate businesses and protect citizens and authorized worke

Source: www.housingwire.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.