“I did vote for Mr. Trump. Deporting the criminals is a great policy. These foundations are poured ready to go, and we can’t even start the construction on them. But we voted for the American dream. And unfortunately, right now, we’re not seeing that.” For months, federal agents have been sweeping up workers at construction sites in South Texas. ”ICE has raided us anywhere between 10 to 15 times throughout different subdivisions.” Now, worksites across the Rio Grande Valley have ground to a halt, and that’s got some Trump supporters in this midterm battleground changing their minds. “These people would just show up to our job sites with no warrants, taking all our workers, even the workers with proper documentation.” Many who work in the construction industry here told us they largely rely on immigrant workers, some of whom are undocumented. D.H.S. did not respond to The Times’s request for comment. But in a previous statement, it said these raids protect the nation’s workforce. “I’ve supported Mr. Trump in every election that he’s been a part of. We just never thought that this would come and affect us in the construction industry, but most importantly, affect our economy here in South Texas.” “We are seeing a reduction of almost 60 percent of our volume on the residential side of our business. We applied for bankruptcy in December.” “We saw a drop in sales of about $5.3 million. For 40 years, we had never laid anybody off, and until this happened, we were forced to.” And beyond construction, local businesses say fear is keeping shoppers at home. “There’s been a lot of loss of sales because of that. It killed us this year.” “Construction is one of the main pillars to the economy here. Everybody’s hurting.” In the Rio Grande Valley, two of President Trump’s top priorities, the economy and mass deportation, are colliding as ICE raids upend the construction industry. And at a parade along the U.S.-Mexico border, Democrats are trying to capitalize on voters’ frustration. “The economic implications are huge. People who voted for Trump are no longer doing it because they can’t afford to do it anymore.” For decades, the Rio Grande Valley, where more than 80 percent of the population is Latino, reliably voted for Democrats. Then, in 2024, voters here swung further toward President Trump than almost anywhere else in the country. “I think Democrats stopped showing up here. They took this community for granted. And so when Republican politicians showed up and made big promises, people took a chance. A year later, we’re seeing those promises weren’t kept.” “So we were going to build 196 apartments here in a year. But because of all the ICE raids and all the enforcements that we’ve been seeing, it’s going to take us three years now to go ahead and finish this development.” County property records show these slowdowns have spread throughout the industry, as banks that lend to homebuilders report fewer transactions. “We were seeing certain banks that did that kind of lending suddenly have much slower activity. Those numbers were declining to about 30 to 40 percent. We weren’t sure why exactly. And I started asking some of these lenders, ‘What is going on?’ We found out that they were struggling to keep their people on the jobs because of ICE.” In February, Mario requested a meeting with ICE through his congressional representatives. He went to Washington, D.C., with a few other builders and pleaded with them to ease up on job sites in South Texas. “They basically told us that if a construction site is not fenced in, it’s considered public property, and that’s why they don’t have to show a warrant. So we started fencing in all our properties.” He said that after the meeting, ICE activity at job sites did decline, but the damage had already been done. “I hope they realize that this is really, really affecting us and it’s affecting the way that we feel towards the administration.”
