A Fifth of Construction Workers Lack Permanent Legal Status. Can the Next President Change That?

Construction has an open secret when it comes to the number of workers lacking permanent legal status on jobsites.

Immigrants entering the country illegally make up about 23% of the construction laborer workforce in the United States, according to a 2021 report from the Center for American Progress. A Pew Research Center study pegged that share at 15% for all workers in construction jobs.

Those numbers underpin a tension in the construction sector where an industry that’s starving for help sometimes rolls out the welcome mat to workers lacking the status to work in the country legally. Doing so can give contractors who are willing to look the other way a leg up on the competition, but it also opens the door to abuses by employers.

“Nobody benefits from having a large pool of undocumented workers in the construction industry,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce at Associated General Contractors of America. “It becomes too easy for those workers to be exploited by unscrupulous contractors who then underbid responsible contractors.”

As the 2024 presidential election draws near, the issue has taken on even more importance for construction executives looking for a way to legally expand their workforces.

The construction industry will need to bring in nearly 454,000 new workers in 2025 on top of normal hiring trends to meet industry demand, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. That estimate also presumes construction spending growth slows significantly next year, even though other data indicates nonresidential construction planning should accelerate by mid-2025.

For that reason, construction trade organizations continue to advocate for meaningful reform to the current immigration system. That means pushing for more programs to allow workers to lawfully enter the country and work in construction, said Anirban Basu, ABC chief economist.

“If we can figure out a way to deal with these 11 [million] or 12 million undocumented migrants — is there a pathway to, if not citizenship, at least a work visa? Can we bring them out of the shadows?” said Basu. “Can they be employed by a contractor without fear of penalty, either for the employee or the employer?”

To read the rest of this story from our sister publication, Construction Dive, click here.