While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.
because “it’s in their genes.
“Immigrant construction workers in Sun Belt metros like Raleigh, Nashville, Houston, and San Antonio have helped these cities sustain their housing cost advantage over coastal cities despite rapid growth in housing demand,” the authors wrote. “No one else would work in the conditions in which we work,” the 40-year-old said in Spanish, asking to be identified by his first name because he lacks legal immigration status, despite living in the U.S. for over 20 years. Workers on jobsites “have an entry time but no exit time,” often logging 70-hour weeks in rain and extreme heat, he said.
By the time much of the law was overturned in 2012, he said, “Arizona had a bad rap” relative to other states that “were a lot more open and just less of a hassle to go work in.”