The Forum Daily | Tuesday, September 2, 2025https://immigrationforum.org/

**THE FORUM DAILY**

Good morning, and we hope you had a restful Labor Day weekend! Special thanks to those who worked even on Labor Day. And a shout-out to all of the educators and other school workers getting a new year under way. 

On the theme of labor: The number of immigrant workers in the United States has gone down by 1.2 million since the enactment of new immigration policies, reports Corey Williams of the Associated Press [link removed]. 

The numbers, from a Pew Research Center analysis, align with a report [link removed] earlier in August from Economic Insights and Research Consulting, as EFE [link removed] and Héctor Ríos Morales of the Latin Times [link removed] reported. 

Immigrants make up 20% of the American workforce, according to Stephanie Kramer, a Pew senior researcher — with far higher percentages in farming, fishing, forestry and construction. And labor economist Pia Orrenius at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas notes that typically, at least half of U.S. job growth is thanks to immigrants. 

The construction industry is being hit hard, reports Ethan Duran of The Daily Reporter [link removed]. Workforce shortages are the top cause of project delays and immigration enforcement has affected almost a third of construction firms, according to a recent industry workforce survey [link removed].  

In the survey, from the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Center for Construction Education and Research, 92% of firms that were hiring reported having trouble finding qualified workers. 

In California, key industries such as agriculture, construction and hospitality are threatened because of the detainment and deportation of immigrant workers, reports Kate Rogers of CNBC [link removed].  

“The lettuce, the strawberries, all the wine we drink on a daily basis, fruit juices — everything that a farmworker picks, packs, pre-harvest — they do the jobs all year round that put food on your table,” said Joe Garcia, president of the California Farmworker Association and CEO of Jaguar Labor Contracting.

In Kansas, farmer Steve Bowlin told KSHB 41 [link removed]’s Ryan Gamboa, "To try to produce the food we all eat is almost impossible without migrant workers." 

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s VP of strategic communications, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. 

**The Latest Related to Immigrant Labor: **

* Federal agents arrest firefighters working on WA wildfire [link removed] (Isabella Breda and Conrad Swanson, The Seattle Times) 

* Crackdown on immigrant workers at a Wisconsin cheese factory triggers backlash, solidarity [link removed] (Ruth Conniff, Wisconsin Examiner)  

* DC eateries suffer as workers terrified of ICE stay home: ‘You don’t want to go outside’ [link removed] (Kira Lerner, The Guardian) 

Key Immigrant Labor Stories Revisited: 

* Immigration crackdown fears hit white-collar offices [link removed] (Emily Peck, Axios) 

* After early reprieve from immigration enforcement, farming industry reckons with raids [link removed] (Ximena Bustillo, NPR) 

* Factories from GE to Kraft Heinz lose immigrant workers, stressing those who remain [link removed] (Andrea Hsu, NPR) 

* Beyond Ottumwa: Thousands of Iowa, US meatpacking jobs at risk in migrant crackdown [link removed] (Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register) 

* Mass Deportations Are Worsening the Caregiving Crisis [link removed] (Whitney Curry Wimbish, The American Prospect) 

**Other News from Recent Days: **

* Judge blocks deportation of Guatemalan migrant children as flights were ready to take off [link removed] (Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News) 

* Judge Blocks Pillar of Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign [link removed] (Zach Montague, The New York Times) 

* Rwanda received migrants deported from the US earlier this month [link removed] (Daphne Psaledakis and George Obulutsa, Reuters) 

Thanks for reading,  

Dan 

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