How Immigration Enforcement Is Hitting Businesses

February 19, 2026

TL;DR

Immigration enforcement policies have resulted in significant labor shortages in agriculture and food industries, with American workers showing little interest in filling vacant positions.
Construction projects are experiencing slowdowns and framing crew shortages, with enforcement operations causing sites to sit idle.
Fear of enforcement operations is spreading beyond targeted areas, causing workers to miss shifts in cities not directly affected.
The administration has not produced public cost-benefit analyses for its immigration enforcement operations, and private sector organizations have largely remained silent on the economic impacts.
Across examined sectors, no population is measurably better off as a result of large-scale detentions and deportations, with low-wage workers experiencing a slowdown in real wage growth.

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