Heavily armed ICE agents arrest a man during an enforcement action in California last year. Credit: WIkimedia Commons / DHS
The Trump White House’s mass deportation agenda is raising prices, killing jobs and gutting communities, according to a new research report, which cites Texas as paying an especially high cost at federal raids continue.
The End the ICE Tax analysis, released Tuesday by immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, argues that prices are rising fastest in the categories most dependent on immigrant labor — among them fresh produce, landscaping and home health care. Meanwhile, immigration raids are destroying jobs and slowing construction projects.
“Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agenda is leaving communities broken and poorer,” America’s Voice Chief of Programs Joanna Kuebler said in an emailed statement. “Monthly ICE arrests in Laredo went from six to 803, and now construction jobs across the Rio Grande Valley are falling at the fastest rate on record, builders are warning businesses won’t survive, and Texas families are left paying more for homes that take longer to build.”
The report points out that Texas — even though it doesn’t rank among the five states with the highest percentage of immigrant laborers — faces outsize damage as the administration continues its aggressive deportation campaign.
For example, San Antonio — one of 86 U.S. cities where ICE enforcement surged last year — experienced a 462% jump in monthly ICE arrests, which cost the local economy nearly 8,200 jobs, according to Brookings Institution data cited in the report.
Meanwhile, construction jobs in the Rio Grande Valley fell by 5% in the third quarter of last year, their largest quarterly drop on record. The Valley has absorbed nearly a fifth of all the agency’s arrests statewide.
“Business is down significantly,” South Texas Builders Association Board President Ronnie Cavazos said in a statement. “If we continue on this trajectory, we will see a lot of businesses fail.”
The report also notes that new home prices are rising as construction slows due to a shortage of immigrant labor. What’s more, payroll data across hundreds of U.S. cities found that the 2025 enforcement surge killed roughly 668,000 jobs, with 51,000 to 297,000 of those jobs held by U.S.-born workers
“Instead of working to bring costs down, [the Trump administration has] chosen a deportation machine that terrorizes our communities, guts our industries and sticks every family with the bill,” Kuebler of America’s Voice said. “It’s time to end the ‘ICE tax’ and put Texas families ahead of a reckless policy that has caused costs to rise.”
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
Related Stories
Immigration officials denied the allegations, but Reps. Joaquin Castro and Veronica Escobar said they’ve come across numerous problematic examples.
Immigration agents sped after a vehicle through a residential neighborhood on the same day of the agency’s traffic stop pause, reportedly endangering a mother and son — before pulling a gun on and briefly handcuffing a U.S. citizen.
Emely, a 16-year-old who attends Churchill High School, was allegedly arrested and used to lure and lock up her father too. Now they’re both free.