1.2 million immigrants are gone from the US labor force under Trump, preliminary data shows

It s tomato season and Lidia is harvesting on farms in California s Central Valley She is also anxious Attention from U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement could upend her life more than years after she illegally crossed the U S -Mexico confines as a teenager The worry is they ll pull you over when you re driving and ask for your papers reported Lidia who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only her first name be used because of her fears of deportation We need to work We need to feed our families and pay our rent As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U S are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday experts say President Donald Trump s stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation s labor force More than million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July according to preliminary Census Bureau records analyzed by the Pew Research Center That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents Immigrants make up almost of the U S workforce and that statistics shows of workers in farming fishing and forestry are immigrants according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer About of all construction workers are immigrants and of facility workers are immigrants she added The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U S illegally reached an all-time high of million in It s unclear how much of the decline we ve seen since January is due to voluntary departures to pursue other opportunities or avoid deportation removals underreporting or other technical issues Kramer commented However we don t believe that the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn t real Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U S illegally He has stated he is focusing deportation efforts on dangerous criminals but the greater part people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions At the same time the number of illegal frontier crossings has plunged under his policies Pia Orrenius a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explained immigrants normally contribute at least of job improvement in the U S The influx across the demarcation from what we can tell is essentially stopped and that s where we were getting millions and millions of refugees over the last four years she mentioned That has had a huge impact on the ability to create jobs Crops did go to waste Just across the boundary from Mexico in McAllen Texas corn and cotton fields are about ready for harvesting Elizabeth Rodriguez worries there won t be enough workers available for the gins and other machinery once the fields are cleared Immigration enforcement actions at farms businesses and construction sites brought everything to a standstill mentioned Rodriguez director of farmworker advocacy for the National Farmworker Ministry In May during the peak of our watermelon and cantaloupe season it delayed it A lot of crops did go to waste she mentioned In Ventura County California northwest of Los Angeles Lisa Tate manages her family business that grows citrus fruits avocados and coffee on eight ranches and acres hectares Bulk of the men and women who work their farms are contractor-provided day laborers There were days earlier this year when crews would be smaller Tate is hesitant to place that blame on immigration policies But the fear of ICE raids spread swiftly Dozens of area farmworkers were arrested late this spring People were being taken out of laundromats off the side of the road Tate commented Lidia the farmworker who spoke to the AP through an interpreter stated her biggest fear is being sent back to Mexico Now she is married with three school-age children who were born here I don t know if I ll be able to bring my kids explained Lidia I m also very concerned I d have to start from zero My whole life has been in the United States From construction to healthcare care Construction sites in and around McAllen also are comprehensively dead Rodriguez reported We have a large labor force that is undocumented she noted We ve seen ICE particularly targeting construction sites and attempting to target mechanic and repair shops The number of construction jobs are down in about half of U S metropolitan areas according to an Associated General Contractors of America analysis of authorities employment figures The largest loss of jobs was in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario California area The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area lost jobs Construction employment has stalled or retreated in numerous areas for a variety of reasons commented Ken Simonson the association s chief economist But contractors assessment they would hire more people if only they could find more qualified and willing workers and tougher immigration enforcement wasn t disrupting labor supplies Kramer with Pew also warns about the foreseen impact on wellbeing care She says immigrants make up about of home medical care aides The Operation Employees International Union represents about million workers in wellbeing care the citizens sector and property services An estimated half of long-term care workers who are members of SEIU in California are immigrants noted Arnulfo De La Cruz the local s president What s going to happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider De La Cruz explained What happens when immigrants aren t in the field to pick our crops Who s going to staff our hospitals and nursing homes An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the name of the U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency The name is not Immigration Control and Enforcement