Developers Wanted For 311-Acre Site Formerly Known As 'Airport City'

In the feverish haze of the hottest summer on record, construction workers in Texas found out they soon will no longer be guaranteed mandated water breaks. In Florida, undocumented workers are subject to new restrictions on the services they’re able to access — including healthcare. And political battles over immigration policy and border security make legislative compromises or reforms increasingly unlikely.

The need to build is everywhere, but it’s becoming harder to find construction workers willing to do the jobs, and some states are making it even harder by cracking down on undocumented immigrants, a major source of construction labor.

For decades, with an acceleration after the Great Recession, the nation’s construction workforce hasn’t kept pace with growing demand due to early retirement, a lack of vocational education and disinterest from young adults to pursue blue-collar work. That has put additional pressure on immigrants, documented and undocumented, to fill the gaps. 

“One thing is pretty darn close to certain and that is that demographics mean we'll be looking at labor shortages in labor-intensive industries, essentially for the rest of our lives,” said Cullum Clark, director at the Bush Institute-Southern Methodist University Economic Growth Initiative.

Undocumented workers are an increasingly vital part of the construction workforce. But it is becoming more difficult for this part of the labor pool to grow, due to a lack of enforcement of worker protections, crackdowns on illegal immigration and an inability to reform immigration laws or expand visa programs.…

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