Pursuits
Trump Wants to Build a Wall. Finding Workers Won’t Be Easy
- Cost of construction labor already rising with hands scarce
- Unemployment in the trade is 4.5%, the lowest in a decade
Who’s Going to Pay for Trump’s Border Wall?
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President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall faces many obstacles. One of the tallest: building it without undocumented workers.
A labor shortage has left few hands to build houses and factories in the region, where wages have already been rising and projects delayed. Now, the president’s plan for “immediate construction of a border wall” will force the government to find legal builders for a project that could employ thousands if not tens of thousands. About half of construction workers in Texas are undocumented, and nationwide 14 percent lack authorization for employment in the U.S., according to the Workers Defense Project, an Austin group that advocates for undocumented laborers.