SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: On workplace raids.
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TOM HOMAN: So you'll see more teams on the streets you've never seen before. You're going to see more worksite enforcement than you've ever seen in the history of this nation. We're going to flood the zone.
HORSLEY: High-profile raids on farms and construction sites and restaurants have certainly captured attention and driven some workers into hiding. According to the Labor Department's tally, more than a million foreign-born workers dropped out of the labor force over the last two months. Now, we don't know how many of those were in the country illegally, but it's likely some people have quit going to work because they're fearful of being arrested and possibly deported.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And how is that affecting the economy?
HORSLEY: If you look at the broad national numbers, it's not having a huge impact yet. Both construction companies and restaurants, for example, continued to add jobs last month. Those are two industries that typically employ a lot of workers who are in the country illegally. But there are plenty of anecdotal reports of economic fallout from these enforcement actions. Robert Dietz is chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. He says every time there's a raid on a big-box store or a restaurant, word gets around at nearby construction sites.
ROBERT DIETZ: It has had a chilling effect in terms of people showing up for work, but it tends to be kind of localized. You know, the impact is for a week or two, and then people have got to show up and work and earn money for their families.
HORSLEY: Still, Dietz is concerned about what stepped-up enforcement might mean for the homebuilding industry, where a third of the workforce is foreign-born. It's not likely to ease what is already a severe housing shortage in the country.
MARTIN: So how critical are workers without legal status to the overall job market?
HORSLEY: A couple of years ago, economists at Goldman Sachs estimated that something over 4% of all workers in the U.S. are living here illegally. In addition to targeting those workers, the president's also been closing off various legal avenues of immigration, and he's been stripping hundreds of thousands of immigrants who did have some kind of temporary permission to be in the country of their right to work. Muzaffar Chishti, who's a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, says the combined effects of all those immigration policies could be far-reaching.
MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Our economy, especially certain sectors of economy, are heavily driven by immigrant labor. We may want to not tolerate unauthorized immigration, but we still need real labor market needs to be met.
HORSLEY: Keep in mind, the native-born population of the U.S. is getting older. Ten thousand baby boomers are retiring every single day. And in recent years, it has really been the growth of the foreign-born workforce that has allowed the U.S. economy to keep growing. Now, the president and his team have a different strategy. It's one that depends on pulling more native-born people, especially men, off the sidelines and getting them into the workforce. Nothing in recent history suggests that's likely, but that is what would be needed to replace the immigrant workers we're now losing.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thank you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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