From wildfires to hurricanes, immigrants are helping rebuild after disasters. Some could be deported

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As firefighters battled blazes in the Los Angeles area this week, Alejandro, a 55-year-old Mexican, was one of several day laborers leading cleanups near the burned neighborhoods of Pasadena and Altadena .

Donning a yellow safety vest, mask and goggles, he helped pick up fallen branches and trees and direct traffic while others worked.

“The country would fall into crisis” without workers like him, said Alejandro, who spoke in Spanish and asked that his last name not be used because he is in the country illegally.

“It wasn’t just one (house),” Alejandro added. “There were thousands of them.”

When President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House next week, he announced plans to illegally deport millions of immigrants in the country. Immigrant advocates say it could impact America’s ability to rebuild quickly after major damage from floods, hurricanes, fires and other disasters.

As the number of extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change increases, the workforce is growing, many without legal status. Some crisscross the country following extreme weather events, helping to rebuild entire communities. Many are highly skilled electricians, plumbers and masons. Others perform manual labor, such as cutting and carrying fallen trees and branches.

“The fact is that the people rebuilding these areas — from Palisades to Malibu to Altadena — are immigrant construction crews,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “They’re the ones who are the second responders.”

In 2023, the United States was hit by 28 climate disasters, each of which exceeded $1 billion in damage. most ever, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although it is too early to know the toll of the wildfires in Los Angeles, an initial estimate from AccuWeather puts the damage and economic losses at between $250 billion and $275 billion.

Trump called climate change a “hoax” and, during his campaign, accused immigrants of taking “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.” Data display this immigrant work contributes to economic growth and provides advancement opportunities for U.S.-born workers.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team, told The Associated Press in a statement that Trump “will use all federal powers and coordinate with state authorities” to expel “the illegal criminals, drug traffickers and human traffickers…while simultaneously reducing costs.” for families and strengthen our workforce.

The disaster restoration industry boomed following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which transformed the Gulf Coast into one of the largest construction sites in the world. Many family-owned construction businesses have expanded and consolidated. Some were eventually purchased by private equity firms who saw a highly profitable industry thanks to money flowing in from insurance companies and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mario Mendoza has been working in the disaster restoration field since Katrina. Within days of the storm, Mendoza was cleaning up mud-covered homes and businesses, removing debris, tearing down walls and tearing up floors, some containing asbestos.

Mendoza, a 54-year-old worker from Honduras without legal status, remembers seeing dead bodies in homes he was hired to clean. Some bosses refused to pay him. In the years after Katrina, he helped Louisiana communities rebuild after tornadoes and hurricanes.

“We have been the support line for cities after disasters,” he said in Spanish.

After disasters, workers are hired by residents, contractors or subcontractors to demolish moldy walls damaged by floods, or to tarp and repair roofs and windows blown away by high winds. They clear debris and downed trees from people’s homes, as well as clogged streets and roads. Then they rebuild. Those without legal status are vulnerable to exploitation and wage theft. They sleep in vans or tents, sometimes on the ground of parking lots or in the destroyed houses that they are rebuilding. They are roofers, carpenters, tilers and workers.

Day laborers hired to clean homes often don’t have protective equipment or safety training, exposing them to “extremely hazardous materials” and hazardous environments, said Jessica Martinez, the council’s executive director. National for Safety and Health at Work, a network of workers. organizations that have trained workers in hurricane recovery. She added that Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric also discourages workers from applying for basic resources because they fear being targeted and deported.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticssome 10.8 million people worked in the construction industry in 2020. The Center for American Progress estimates that nearly 1.6 million immigrants working in 2021 in the construction industry – a workforce in which Latinos are overrepresented – were in the country illegally. The numbers are higher in states like Texas and California.

In addition to workers already in the United States, tens of thousands of people each year legally obtain H-2B visas, which allow them to temporarily enter the country to perform non-agricultural work. Construction is one of the sectors with a high prevalence of H-2B workers.

Stan Marek, CEO of construction company Marek Brothers, said mass evictions would significantly hamper cleanup and rebuilding efforts after disasters, and contractors would struggle to complete existing and future projects.

“If you don’t have the people, you can’t solve the problem,” said Marek, a Republican. “We still haven’t fixed everything since (Hurricane) Harvey years ago. Some people’s ceilings are still sagging, collapsing.

The United States is also experiencing a housing shortage, raising questions about how the Trump administration plans to solve this problem by reducing the number of construction workers. In an interview With the New York Times last year, Vice President-elect JD Vance said construction workers without legal status could be replaced by millions of “middle-aged” men and women who have abandoned the market of work. He also said they could be convinced to join this profession by paying them higher salaries.

Florida provides insight into the possible effects of any upcoming mass evictions. In the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia that hit the Big Bend region in August 2023, some workers without legal status were too afraid to complete recovery work they started due to a traffic accident in Florida. immigration law which came into force in July. One of the strictest in the country, it requires, among other things, companies employing 25 or more people to verify the legal status of their workers.

“A lot of workers I know didn’t want to take the risk of staying there,” said Saket Soni, executive director of the nonprofit Resilience Force, which advocates for the growing group of disaster restoration workers. . “They wanted to finish the job, but they couldn’t risk being evicted. So they put down their tools and left.

Sergio Chávez, a sociology professor at Rice University who is writing a book on the disaster recovery industry, sees a few alternatives to fill a potential labor shortage in the construction industry: Either Trump will have to expand the H-2B worker program, or hire Americans who will. work for higher pay.

But Marek is not convinced. “Everyone says pay them more. We tried to pay them more,” he said. “Our starting salaries are higher than they have ever been. And they’d rather go to work at Buc-ee’s,” referring to the travel retail chain.

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