Immigration enforcement tightens squeeze on homebuilders’ job sites

[Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a three-part series exploring disruptions, potential solutions and homebuilding’s business impacts of recent immigration enforcement initiatives. Part 1 is here. Our Part 3, later this week, will explore the operational and business impacts of the enforcement strategy at a macro housing level and at the balance-sheet level of homebuilding firms.]Residential construction has grappled with a shortage of skilled frontline workers since the mid-2000s, and the problem worsened after the Great Financial Crisis and has never fully recovered. According to the Home Builders Institute (HBI), the industry needs to recruit roughly 723,000 workers each year to meet current demand and close the labor gap.Immigrant workers have long been a vital part of that workforce, making up one in four residential construction workers on the nation’s job sites, according to official headcount statistics. Unofficially, that 25% share is widely regarded as an underestimate. But that reliance on foreign-born labor has come under renewed pressure this summer as a surge in immigration enforcement and job-site raids has left workers fearful and, according to some homebuilders, fur...