25 News is taking a new look into the stories being told about undocumented immigrants in the U.S. workforce, all sparked by a viewer email.
Last week, 25 News received an email that said in part:
“...with deportations happening, industry leaders they now have to hire Americans or legal immigration status..."
It raised some interesting points.
“It’s not like people wanted to go and hire undocumented workers — the market found them because there were no other workers," said Ray Perryman, President and CEO of the Waco economic analysis firm, The Perryman Group.
The nation sits at a 4.1 percent unemployment rate as of December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics — which is not much different from Texas which sits at a 4.2 percent unemployment rate.
"We do not have the people — there's not like some pool of people over here that we haven’t thought about that we can go get to do these jobs," Perryman said.
Unauthorized immigrants made up about five percent of the U.S. workforce in 2022, according to some of the most recent data from Pew Research.
The state of Texas stands at number two in the country with eight percent or 1.2 million of its workforce being considered unauthorized.
Adam Lampert is with Cambridge Caregivers and Manchester Care Homes which is based in Dallas.
Lampert says 300 to 350 workers are foreign-born workers with visas — primarily African workers.
His concern is for the potential of a "workforce crunch" — as we all want the best for ourselves and families — Adam believes his workers could seek greener pastures by going after the jobs vacated by deported immigrants thus having a trickling effect through our economy.
This could raise inflation and pass these costs down to consumers.
“I would have to charge more money because i have to pay more money to get those same positions filled," Lampert said.
"Let me be clear we don’t discriminate — when we go out looking for workers it’s not like we’re saying we want immigrants. It’s not that at all.”
“We would love to have American citizens, they’re just not answering the call," Lampert said.
According to Pew Research, the construction industry is the top field where undocumented immigrant workers can be found.
25News' Bobby Poitevint took a deeper look at how the construction industry is being impacted by the latest immigration policies, and that story is here.
