Last year constructions jobs in El Paso experienced slow growth since recovering the job losses the economic sector experienced in 2024. Although the sector grew by around 1% in early 2025, workforce pressures from the government shutdown and immigration among other factors like high interest rates have slowed new construction in El Paso.
Immigration raids on Texas homebuilding sites were “openly assumed that the construction industry was being negatively impacted,” but few, including the home builder advocates would officially acknowledge it, presumably out of fear of antagonizing the Republican leaders in Texas.
That was until Mario Guerrero, the executive director of the South Texas Builders Association, posted a video on the association’s Facebook page pointing out the home construction industry was being hurt by the immigration raids across the nation. Poignantly, Guerrero started his video post with “I would like to start off this video by saying that I am an American citizen, and it’s crazy that we’re living in times where you actually have to state that.”
According to the Federal Reserve of Dallas, during the third quarter of last year, construction jobs in the Rio Grande Valley dropped by 5%, the “single largest dip in jobs in the region,” according to the Texas Tribune.
El Paso’s job market in construction, instead, showed a 0.6% increase. However, unlike the Valley’s job report, El Paso’s construction jobs are combined with those in the mining sector making it difficult to parse out the construction job losses.
Although El Paso’s economy seems stronger than the Valley’s, El Paso’s unemployment rate, at 4.5% in August, has now surpassed the state and national unemployment rates. Moreover, while Texas housing permits have been trending lower since 2020, El Paso’s new housing permits have dropped by 6.5%, more than the Texas 6% drop from August 2024.
Building a new house in Texas requires a building permit.
When the South Texas Builders Association held its meeting in December, the message was clear, “construction can’t continue” while the immigration enforcement continues to target Texas’ construction sites. Ronnie Cavazos, the president of the association told those attending that “business is down significantly,” adding that if it continues, “a lot of businesses [will] fail.”
Cavazos continued, “let me tell you about immigrants in his country…nobody believes in the America dream more than them.” He added that “the immigrant should be celebrated, treated with dignity and allowed to work and provide for their families.”
Although Guerrero has experienced some backlash for exposing what many already knew, he isn’t backing down, telling the Texas Tribune that “people maybe don’t understand the magnitude of what’s happening.”
Guerrero’s exposure of the economic impact on Texas home builders that immigration enforcement is causing has mostly landed on deaf ears with Texas legislators, most of which are Republicans.
However, at least one Texas Republican has taken heed. U.S. Rep. Mónica de la Cruz (R-TX15) announced on Monday that she wants to find a legal pathway for foreign constructions workers to work in the homebuilding industry, because of the Texas Valley’s construction economy woes. She wants to create an H2A visa program for construction workers. The H2A visa program offers foreign agricultural workers access to American farms.
In 2022, Cruz, won her seat after being endorsed by Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. She is running for reelection this year.
Cruz’s campaign website says nothing about immigration reform for foreign laborer’s, instead stating that she wants to “reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy,” and “support Border Patrol and Customs agents,” as well as “support E-Verify.”
However, citing her meeting with Guerrero about the plight of Texas Valley home builders, Cruz said “at the end of the day, I want to represent South Texas, and I want to represent our community and make sure that we continue to be prosperous,” seemingly acknowledging that her plan to seek work authorizations for foreign construction workers would go against her Republican supporters.
Congresswoman Veronica Escobar Joins in Pushing for Immigration Reform
Along with her Republican colleague, El Paso’s Congresswoman Veronica Escobar has also pushed for immigration reform since 2023. In an email, Escobar’s Communications Director, Abbey Thompson told us that, “Congresswoman Escobar co-authored the first bi-partisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill in the U.S. House in a decade (the Dignity Act of 2023).” She added that “her current bill, the Dignity Act of 2025, includes provisions that would protect construction workers, has the endorsement of the National Homebuilders Association, and is co-sponsored by Rep. De La Cruz.” “There are 15 Republican and 15 Democratic co-sponsors to the bill, and it’s currently the only bipartisan immigration bill with this level of support,” according to Escobar’s spokesperson.
Unlike the Texas Valley home builders, El Paso’s home building industry has remained quiet about their labor force and the immigration raids. Texas, like the rest of the nation, has not been immune to workplace immigration raids. Late last year, immigration enforcement agents conducted operations in Houston and San Antonio. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered state police to work with immigration officials. Texas leads the nation in immigrant arrests.
Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio lead the Texas’ cities where immigration raids occurred last year. Meanwhile, except for immigration court arrests, El Paso did not make the news about immigration raids. The first instance of news about an immigration raid in the city was on the last day of 2025 when KFOX 14 reported on “an apparent immigration raid in Far East El Paso.”
Apparently, KFOX became aware of the “apparent” raid at the construction site where an unknown number of people were detained by immigration officials by an online video. KFOX was unable to confirm if the video depicted an immigration raid. Other than the apparent immigration raid, residents in El Paso have not reported witnessing large-scale immigration raids like in other communities across the nation.
Nonetheless, El Paso home builders have been weathering high interest rates and high property taxes over the last couple of years putting pressure on their homebuilding businesses.
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The El Paso Home Builders
According to Coldwell Banker broker, Patrick Tuttle, several factors including “shifting demographics, rising costs, and regulatory headwinds” have forced El Paso home builders to “rethink” what they build, and how they price their homes. By 2024, according to Tuttle, El Paso experienced a 22% increase in home sales while house inventories were dropping. The pressure points for the local builders are high interest rates and difficulty for El Pasoans to qualify for home mortgages with low incomes. Although Tuttle added that “labor shortages” persist due to “tariffs and stalled immigration reforms” in his July 9 report in the builder’s association newsletter, he did not directly address immigration raids as a factor.
Instead, Tuttle focused on the need for the builders to build farther east to help homebuyers qualify for loans due to lower new home prices. Tuttle did not address the fact that El Paso homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the state.
As for the El Paso Association of Builders, outgoing president, Victor Robles, wrote in the organization’s December 1 Builder’s Outlook issue that in 2025 local builders faced “periods of workforce pressure and furloughs,” which affected project timelines and labor availability throughout the state.”
Executive Director Ray Adauto wrote in the publication that the “City of El Paso is threatening to drive up costs for residents and businesses while basic services continue to deteriorate.” Adauto added that the city takes revenues from building permits and diverts them into the city’s General Fund “leaving Planning & Inspections chronically understaffed and under-resourced while the money is spent elsewhere.”
We asked Adauto for comment about the challenges faced by the El Paso builders and if immigration raids had affected the local builders. In an email response yesterday, Adauto wrote that El Paso home builders were “unable to build enough single family homes as are needed.” He added that “this is nothing new as we have stated for decades [that there is] a shortage of houses,” that El Paso’s workers “can afford to buy.” This is because of the salaries a typical El Pasoan earns.
When asked about how the local builders are doing, Adauto wrote that the local building sector is in “a downturn, or actually still in the covid downturn.” He added that new housing “construction has not recovered from the damages the shutdown caused.” He was referring to the longest federal shutdown that ended in November.
As to what is driving the local new housing construction downturn, Adauto wrote that it has “many components,” including “labor costs, high material prices, wages,” and “consumer debt to earnings ratio.” He was referring to local homebuyers carrying too much debt. The builders association president added that the lots to build new homes on are costlier and fewer are available.
He added that “cheap labor has vanished.” “Immigration crackdowns are hurting the ability to have that cheap labor causing costs to go up for the builder and the consumer,” he wrote.
When asked what can be done to address the home builder’s economic downturn, Adauto wrote that “high property taxes are the evil dog in El Paso,” adding that “tax reform, real not just talking, will help big time.” Gimmicks like “proposals to offer 40- and 50-year mortgages may help get people into new homes, but the worry is that the consumer may not be looking at starter homes and wanting instead to buy more expensive homes,” he wrote. Adauto added that solving the issue of new home availability in El Paso requires “consolidating school districts, curbing bigger government and demanding efficiency at all levels of government.” He added that immigration reform is needed for less expensive labor to build homes leading to less expensive homes for the El Paso’s home buyers.
According to the data compiled by the Texas A&M University Texas Real Estate Research Center, new home building in El Paso started a downturn in May 2025. In May, 179 new building permits were pulled, in June only 158 were pulled and in August, the last month that data is available, only 142 permits were pulled, compared to August 2024 when 177 permits had been pulled.
Between January and August of 2020, there were 1,840 permits pulled for new home construction. New home permits increased to 1,880 in 2021 for the same period. In 2022, between January and August 2022, there were 1,642 permits pulled while the following year, in 2023, only 1,384 were pulled. In 2024, through August, 1,353 permits were pulled, while last year for the same period, 1,325 permits were issued for new houses.
Adauto agrees that when the numbers for permits pulled in September through December of last year become available, they will show a noticeable drop in new home construction. He also noted that immigration raids in El Paso did not seem to be happening on job sites but that he noted that builders have experienced a lack “of cheap labor” driving up the prices of new homes, further pricing El Paso consumers out of buying a home.
Although immigration raids in El Paso do not seem to be happening on job sites at the levels that other cities are experiencing, like those in Valley, the fear of being scooped up at a job site seems to have led to the lack “of cheap labor” to build homes in the city.