US workers say Trump's immigration crackdown is causing labor shortages: 'A strain on everybody'

Source: The Guardian

Tue 29 Jul 2025 07.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 29 Jul 2025 07.01 EDT


Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration is piling pressure on US factories, according to employees and union leaders, as veteran workers from overseas are forced to leave their jobs. As economists warn the administration’s full-scale deportation ambitions could ultimately cost millions of jobs, workers at two sites – in Michigan and Kentucky – told the Guardian that industrial giants are grappling with labor shortages.

The US president has moved to strip more than a million immigrants of their legal status in the US, including by shutting down the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans (CHNV) Parole Program, which allowed hundreds of thousands to work legally in the country. It has meanwhile ramped up immigration arrest operations with prospective daily quotas of 3,000 arrests per day. Such moves have piled pressure on industries across the US economy – including the food, hospitality, construction, transportation and care sectors – which rely on large numbers of migrants to do essential work.

At a GE Appliances plant in Louisville, Kentucky, more than 125 workers were abruptly forced out of their jobs in the spring due to programs cancelled as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to an employee. GE Appliances makes home appliances including refrigerators, microwaves and dishwashers.

“In three different buildings, on a couple of different shifts, stewards reported that they lost production so they weren’t able to make all the products they were supposed to make,” said Jess Reese, a replacement operator at the plant and organizer for IUE-CWA Local 83761.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/29/trump-immigration-crackdown-labor-shortages-slowdowns