Along a narrow lane in front of a Home Depot in central Broward County, Jorge Villa waited with a group of day laborers, hoping contractors exiting the store might offer them some work.
He pulled out his wallet and proudly displayed photographs of family members in his native Venezuela.
His personal goal, Villa said, was to send as much money as possible back home and eventually, start his own trucking business. Now, he’s not so sure how long that will last.
From her home in Plantation, Maria Elena Hernandez, who came to South Florida from Nicaragua years ago, wondered why she will soon be losing her right to live and work in the United States after steadily toiling as a custodian cleaning and sanitizing classrooms and offices at a local university for many years.
Hernandez, an activist and member of the SEIU 32BJ, which represents custodial, property maintenance and food service workers, told the Sun Sentinel of her sense of betrayal.
“We worked throughout the pandemic as essential workers without worrying ourselves about getting sick,” she said. “We still showed up day to day. Because of that the parents were very grateful that we kept their children safe and kept the classrooms safe and disinfected.”
Now, she is on edge as TPS for both Nicaraguans and Hondurans is scheduled to end.
All around South Florida, thousands of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean are playing a waiting game after the Trump Administration revoked Temporary Protective Status for a number of foreign national groups. Some were scheduled to end as soon as last weekend while others will be phased out early next year. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump moved to terminate the legal status and work permits of nearly 270,000 Venezuelans as well as Haitains enrolled in the TPS program and urged them to self-deport. But a San Francisco federal judge on Friday put the action on hold.
The announcement marked the latest effort by the administration to revoke humanitarian protections granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants from countries engulfed by political turmoil and war. The president also has openly spoken of attempting to denaturalize immigrants who became U.S. citizens.
The administration’s aggressive move to terminate TPS programs for Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans is stirring concerns in the business community at large and in the agriculture, construction, manufacturing, hospitality and transportation industries about how big a hole a mass exodus of immigrants might create in South Florida’s labor supply.
“All of these industries rely on lower-cost labor to survive,” said Keith Costello, president and CEO of Fort Lauderdale-based Locality Bank in Fort Lauderdale, which has a large clientele of small business operators. “These are not typically jobs filled by our American workforce.”
Costello said he is hearing concerns from an array of business owners.
“Nobody is against sending criminals back,” he said of Trump’s original pledge to expel offenders from foreign countries. “Getting criminals out of the country — everybody applauds that.
“But people who are here holding down jobs supporting families — honest hardworking people — let them continue to work here,” he added. “Honestly, we need them.”
The timing and extent of a forced return of immigrants to their home countries — many of whom have been “de-documented’” by the administration, in the words of one labor union official — is unknown.
Concerns are starting to ripple through some economic sectors in South Florida, even though state government agencies and certain industry associations that track employment have had little or nothing to say publicly.
FloridaCommerce, the state agency charged with tracking employment in the state, did not respond to three requests to discuss the issue. The Florida arm of the National Federation of Independent Business, which says that one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses is the retention of qualified talent, did not respond to requests for comment.
A dwindling active labor pool
But according to the American Immigration Council, 27.4% of Florida’s labor force were workers from foreign nations in 2023. Of that vast amount, 21% were from Cuba, 7.3% from Haiti, 7.1% from Venezuela and 6.5% from Colombia.
The percentage of undocumented workers: 6.7%.
Ron Hetrick, a Jacksonville-based principal economist for the national labor data firm Lightcast, said that while a dwindling availability of immigrant labor is hard to calculate at this point, there is a key telltale sign that a decline in immigrant workers is in progress.
That indicator, he told the Sun Sentinel, is Florida’s falling labor participation rate, which was at a low of 57.8% in July, continuing a steady monthly decline. Nationally, the July rate exceeded 61%.
Historically, immigrants have been credited by economists as playing a significant role in Florida’s economic growth as foreign nationals over the years arrived in the state to escape political oppression and/or economic duress at home.
“We all know immigrants have a very high labor force participation rate because they came here to work,” Hetrick said.
But now, “we keep gaining population, and your labor force isn’t growing in kind.”
“The big thing for me is the labor force participation rate,” he said. “That plummeting is incredibly indicative.”
Renata Castro, an immigration lawyer based in Coral Springs, said the state will be one of those feeling the biggest financial impact “just by the nature of our industries.”
“We have seen employers dumbfounded,” she said. “I am surprised they are surprised this was going to be the outcome of Trump’s election.”
Two South Florida labor union leaders asserted that Trump’s impetus to oust foreigners will have serious ripple effects on the local economy in both employment and worker earnings spent.
Wendi Walsh, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 355, which represents hotel and food service workers in South Florida, and Helene O’Brien, Florida director of the SEIU 32BJ, told the Sun Sentinel in separate interviews that people who are chastened into leaving their jobs under government pressure won’t be spending much money in the localities where they live. Both recently appeared at a “public briefing” conducted locally by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, to discuss Trump’s economic and social policies.
“I do think the silence of the employers is deafening,” Walsh said. “They know they need these workers and if by chance they did need to replace these authorized immigrant workers with American-born workers that they would have to pay a higher wage to make that happen. I don’t think [the removals] are in the interest of the employers at all.”
“In the Trump administration they are in the process of de-documenting people,” O’Brien said of the elimination of protection programs.
“The very act of hunting people down and making them go from legal to illegal is making labor cheaper,” she said. “I don’t know that that was an intention or not.”
As part of the union’s contracts, workers have access to legal funds so they can explore legal alternatives if they suddenly find themselves without authorization to be in the United States. “Our janitors are lawyered up,” O’Brien said.
Waiting game
Heiko Dubrikow, general manager of the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, said his hotel has not been affected by the loss of foreign-born employees. Ownership screens them through the state’s E-Verify program.
But he pointed to larger hotels that are reliant on contractors who are finding it difficult to retain labor pools for hospitality workers.
“We have heard from third parties that they don’t have the same supply of labor any longer,” he said.
Peter Ricci, director of the hospitality and management program at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business, said he has not heard of hoteliers suddenly losing foreign nationals from their staff. But it’s the confusion that is perplexing many.
“I hear frustration and confusion of what changes will occur on a regular basis for owners, operators and managers,” Ricci said. “It’s more of the unknown that’s disconcerting than, ‘I’m now worried about losing workers in my hotel or restaurant.’”
But he acknowledged the winter tourist season might project a different profile as hotels look to staff up for the annual influx of vacationing leisure travelers.
In the construction business, where contractors prefer certainty as they map out complex projects, concerns are emerging for the long-term.
Peter Dyga, president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors for the Florida East Coast chapter, said skiled tradesmen are in constant demand among his 600-plus members, all of whom focus on commercial projects.
“Our members don’t hire people outside of Home Depot,” Dyga said.
“It’s acknowledged that there are bad players in many industries,” he added. “Unless the federal government grants you a work authorization you can’t work in this country.”
Ideally he suggested, apprenticehip programs such as those run by the association can fill the demand for workers. Statewide, a strong economy has caused a backlog of commercial projects around the state.
“We as an organization are trying to assess where we failed in the past — how we can do better attracting people in the workforce,” Dyga said, “We’ve got to do a better job.”
“But they’re not complaining right now. It’s not like projects right now have been shelved — the economy has been strong.”
“The bottom line is there is no doubt the industry is worried or has to consider a potential impact,” he said of uncertainties raised by present-day immigration issues as well as tariffs. “We care about predictability. This certainly throws a wrench into it.”
Some employers feel an impact
Gary Arkin owns Premier Precast, a concrete manufacturing plant in Delray Beach. The firm casts custom siding and other decorative building features, and mainly employs laborers who don’t need much training.
He told the New York Times that he lost several laborers since Trump’s crackdown on immigrants started. Even if he offered higher wages, he said, he doubts he would attract American-born workers, who can earn more and build long careers in the skilled trades. They seem uninterested in the hot, hard work of pouring concrete and moving around heavy slabs.
“If the idea of the immigration enforcement was to give jobs to more Americans, that’d be great, if the Americans want the jobs,” Arkin said. “But they don’t.”
Stefanie Camfield, associate general counsel and HR services director for Engage PEO, a human resources consultancy, said she’s heard anecdotal evidence from clients of employees simply not showing up for work because of local raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Trump, she noted, is not only cracking down on the undocumented; he is putting a “damper on employment” for authorized immigrants.
“I have employer clients who are significantly concerned,” Camfield said. They are not sure if an employee has been picked up or self-deported or is sitting in a detention camp.
“They just don’t know,” she added.
Camfield suggested employers can protect themselves by updating authorization documents when they expire; employees should be informed when expirations occur.
“An employer has to fill out that I-9 form,” she said, referring to the federal form to verify the identities and employment authorizations of prospective workers.
“The issue that is coming up is that the documentation has expired,” she said.
Employees who lack proper documentation should be terminated.
“An employer who fails to terminate is opening themselves up to the potential for administrative fines,” Camfield said. “They could be subject to criminal charges and they could lose their business licenses in certain states like Florida.”
As a general practice, employers should enroll in the state’s E-verify program, pre-screen applicants for work authorizations and self-audit their I-9 forms. “Those are all good practices every employer should be doing.”
“One of the more interesting things is while there seems to be a lot of people looking for jobs, it doesn’t appear there is a lot of hiring,” Camfield said. “It does increase the stress on businesses that have large vacancy rates.”
Futures unknown
The futures that lie ahead for Maria Elena Hernandez and Jorge Villa remain muddled.
Hernandez declined to discuss her options.
“This has affected me deeply,” she said in Spanish through a translator. “In my country there is tremendous political instability. The U.S. Government itself warns people against traveling to Nicaragua. I have been gone for so many years I am scared of going back. I’m scared of how they will treat us. We are scared of being treated like traitors after having been gone for so many years.”
Asked what he would do, Villa cracked a half smile — and shrugged.
This article was supplemented by information from The New York Times.