Business
Undocumented Workers, Fearing Deportation, Are Staying Home
The railroad tracks that slice through downtown Freehold, N.J., used to be lined by dozens of men, waiting for work. Each morning, the men — day laborers, almost all from Latin America and undocumented — would be scooped up by local contractors in pickup trucks for jobs painting, landscaping, removing debris.
In recent weeks, the tracks have been desolate. On a gray February morning, a laborer named Mario, who came from Mexico two decades ago, said it was the quietest he could remember.
“Because of the president, we have a fear,” said Mario, 55, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that only his first name would be used because he is undocumented. His two sons are also in the United States illegally; one works in paving, the other in home construction. “We are in difficult times,” he said.
This scene has been playing out on the streets of Freehold, on the farms of California’s Central Valley, in nursing homes in Arizona, in Georgia poultry plants and in Chicago restaurants.
President Trump has broadcast plans for a “mass deportation,” and the opening weeks of his second term have brought immigration enforcement operations in cities across the United States, providing a daily drumbeat of arrests that, while so far relatively limited, are quickly noted in group chats among migrants.
Fear has gripped America’s undocumented workers. Many are staying home.
The impact is being felt not only in immigrant homes and communities, but also in the industries that rely on immigrants as a source of willing and inexpensive labor, including residential construction, agriculture, senior care and hospitality. American consumers will soon feel the pain.
“Businesses across industries know what comes next when their work force disappears — restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores struggling to stay open, food prices soaring, and everyday Americans demanding action,” said Rebecca Shi, chief executive of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
An estimated 20 percent of the U.S. labor force is foreign born, and millions of immigrant workers lack legal immigration status.
Hundreds of thousands more have been shielded from deportation and have work permits under a program called temporary protected status, offered to nationals of countries in upheaval, which has enabled corporate giants like Amazon and large commercial builders to hire them. But Mr. Trump has already announced that he will phase out the program, starting with Venezuelan and Haitian beneficiaries.
Refugees from around the globe, who have settled in the United States after fleeing persecution, have supplied a steady pipeline of low-skilled labor for poultry plants, warehouses and manufacturing. But that pipeline could dry up since Mr. Trump shut down the U.S. refugee program. Last month, a federal judge restored it temporarily while a lawsuit is pending, but the program remains at a standstill and no refugees are arriving.
The White House did not respond to questions about the strategy of deportations and how the Trump administration envisions filling the gaps left behind by the immigrant work force.
Leaders of industries that are the most exposed warn that the impact will be widespread, with far-reaching consequences for consumers and employers.
Kezia Scales, vice president at PHI, a national research and advocacy organization focused on long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities, said her industry was already facing a “recruitment crisis.”
“If immigrants are prevented from entering this work force or are forced to leave the country by restrictive immigration policies and rhetoric,” she said, “we will face systems collapse and catastrophic consequences for millions of people who rely on these workers.”
Warning of Higher Costs
In construction, up to 19 percent of all workers are undocumented, according to independent estimates — and the share is higher in many states. Their contribution is even more pronounced in residential construction, where industry leaders have warned of an acute labor shortage.
“Any removals of construction workers is going to exacerbate that problem,” said Nik Theodore, a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Inevitably, it will slow the work, which leads to cost increases, because of the production delays.” This would have a profound impact on the construction industry and everybody involved, from developers to private homeowners, Mr. Theodore said.
In commercial construction, a tightening labor market would raise costs because of upward pressure on wages, said Zack Fritz, an economist with Associated Builders and Contractors, a national construction trade association.
The group’s chief executive, Michael D. Bellaman, said he welcomed many aspects of what he deemed Mr. Trump’s “deregulation, pro-growth agenda.” But he and others in the industry also called for an overhaul of the immigration system, including by expanding work visas.
Commercial building relies on many workers with temporary protected status, Mr. Bellaman said; some have been in the industry for decades.
The mayor of Houston, John Whitmire, said people who think his city and the country can thrive without the labor of undocumented immigrants “don’t live in the real world.”
“You know who’s paving our roads and building our houses,” said Mr. Whitmire, a Democrat.
Challenges in Elder Care
The senior care industry faces a similar challenge: growing demand for workers, and not enough native-born Americans to do the work. Those jobs have increasingly been filled by immigrants with varying legal statuses.
Adam Lampert has spent 15 years in the industry in Texas, mainly managing care for the parents of baby boomers. The business is thriving — and a silver tsunami is on the horizon, he warns: The number of adults 65 or older in the United States totaled 60 million in 2022, and is projected to exceed 80 million by 2050.
“Baby boomers are yet to wash through the system, and they will be a full new generation we will have to address,” said Mr. Lampert, the chief executive of Manchester Care Homes and Cambridge Caregivers, based in Dallas.
Some 80 percent of his caregivers are foreign born. “We don’t go out looking for people who are immigrants,” he said. “We go out hiring people who answer the call — and they are all immigrants.”
Everyone he hires has permission to lawfully work in the United States, he said, but if the mass deportations promised by Mr. Trump materialize, recruitment will become tougher in an industry already struggling with it.
There are five million people working directly with clients in what is considered the formal senior care industry, made up of those who can legally hold jobs in the United States.
In New York, two-thirds of those working in homes are foreign-born, as are nearly half in California and Maryland. Countless others take part in the vast gray market, potentially worth billions of dollars, employed by families who hire in-home aides, many of them undocumented, by word of mouth or online.
The caregivers in private homes support seniors with essential activities of daily life, helping them eat, dress, bathe and use the toilet. They escort them to doctors’ appointments and manage their medications. It is low-skill, low-pay work, but requires a certain temperament, physical strength and patience.
If tens of thousands of undocumented caregivers were deported, there would be more competition for fewer caregivers, experts say. The cost of in-home care would climb.
Often green card holders and U.S. citizens have undocumented family members, and these mixed-status families have been under strain as immigration crackdowns have intensified.
Molly Johnson, general manager of FirstLight Home Care, a licensed agency in California, has rapidly expanded her roster of caregivers to meet galloping demand since starting the business five years ago. All her workers have passed background checks, she said, and are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.
But recently, one of the standout caregivers, a native-born American, suddenly quit because her mother was detained by immigration agents. The person she cared for was distraught.
“Unfortunately, we are going to be seeing more of this trickle-down effect,” Ms. Johnson said. “If it’s not our caregiver, it’s their loved one impacted by enforcement actions.”
A Test for Growers
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the immigrant men and women employed at Deardorff Family Farms in Oxnard, Calif. — and across the country, in vast fields and food processing plants — were anointed “essential workers” by the government.
Like other growers, Tom Deardorff, who runs the vegetable farm, printed cards for his workers to show law enforcement officers, in case they were stopped on their way to the fields, declaring that the Department of Homeland Security considered them “critical to the food supply chain.” Their immigration status was not of concern.
“These people have come into our country to do this work,” said Mr. Deardorff, a fourth-generation grower. “We owe them not just ‘thank you.’ We owe them the common decency and dignity to not be threatened by government draconian penalties.”
Now, with Mr. Trump in the White House, many immigrants who harvest strawberries, vegetables and citrus in this agriculture-rich stretch of Southern California face possible detention and deportation.
The U.S. farming sector has suffered a labor shortage for decades. Immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Central America, have filled the void: Farmers say they cannot find American-born laborers to do the strenuous work. More than 40 percent of the nation’s crop workers are immigrants without legal status, according to estimates by the Department of Agriculture, yet many have lived in the United States for decades.
“The argument that some have made, from time immemorial, is that people will do these jobs if all the immigrants leave,” said Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University. “But there is no guarantee that employers will raise wages or improve working conditions.”
She said there had been a “misunderstanding of the labor market.” The reason American citizens aren’t in the agriculture sector — or elder care, or residential construction — isn’t solely about money, she said. These jobs, she said, “are low-wage, low-status, high-exploitation unless workers organize unions.”
A three-day crackdown in California’s Central Valley in January, before Mr. Trump took office, showed the potential effects of large-scale enforcement in farming areas. Absenteeism soared after Border Patrol agents conducted sweeps in Bakersfield. They stopped and arrested people at a Home Depot, at gas stations and along a heavily trafficked route to farms, according to the Nisei Farmers League, a grower association.
Some 30 to 40 percent of workers failed to report to the fields in the days that followed, according to the league, which represents about 500 growers and packers.
Gregory K. Bovino, a Border Patrol chief in Southern California, called the operation an “overwhelming success” that resulted in the arrests of 78 people in the country illegally, including some with “serious criminal histories.” Farmworker advocates said many others without criminal records had been rounded up, too.
Bracing for More Raids
Migrants and advocacy organizations are bracing for more raids.
In Princeton, N.J., one rainy February evening, around a dozen day laborers gathered for a meeting with Resistencia en Acción, a New Jersey group focused on immigrant workers, part of a sprawling organization called the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
The workers had different immigration statuses — some had temporary protected status or other forms of protection; others were undocumented. They worked as drivers and pavers, in restaurants and in mechanic shops. One man, who worked in a window factory, said he was terrified that federal agents would come to his workplace, where dozens of other Latin American immigrants toiled. Others said they had been working fewer hours in recent weeks, out of fear.
One man, who said he worked chopping fish, fruits and vegetables for a small grocery store, wondered aloud: “What white person is going to do these jobs?”
As film and television post-production work has increasingly left California, workers are pushing for a new standalone tax credit focused on their industry.
That effort got a major boost Wednesday night when a representative for Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) said the lawmaker would take up the bill.
The news was greeted by cheers and applause from an assembled crowd of more than 100 people who attended a town hall meeting at Burbank’s Evergreen Studios.
“As big of a victory as this is, because it means we’re in the game, this is just the beginning,” Marielle Abaunza, president of the California Post Alliance trade group, a newly formed trade group representing post-production workers, said during the meeting.
The state’s post-production industry — which includes workers in fields like sound and picture editing, music, composition and visual effects — has been hit hard by the overall flight of film and TV work out of California and to other states and countries. Though post-production workers aren’t as visible, they play a crucial role in delivering a polished final product to TV, film and music audiences.
Last year, lawmakers boosted the annual amount allocated to the state’s film and TV tax credit program and expanded the criteria for eligible projects in an attempt to lure production back to California. So far, more than 100 film and TV projects have been awarded tax credits under the revamped program.
But post-production workers say the incentive program doesn’t do enough to retain jobs in California because it only covers their work if 75% of filming or overall budget is spent in the state. The new California Post Alliance is advocating for an incentive that would cover post-production jobs in-state, even if principal photography films elsewhere or the project did not otherwise qualify for the state’s production incentive.
Schultz said he is backing the proposed legislation because of the effect on workers in his district over the last decade.
“We are competing with other states and foreign countries for post production jobs, which is causing unprecedented threats to our workforce and to future generations of entertainment industry workers,” he said in a statement Thursday.
During the 1 1/2 hour meeting, industry speakers pointed to other states and countries, including many in Europe, with specific post-production incentives that have lured work away from the Golden State. By 2024, post-production employment in California dropped 11.2%, compared with 2010, according to a presentation from Tim Belcher, managing director at post-production company Light Iron.
“We’re all an integrated ecosystem, and losses in one affect losses in the other,” he said during the meeting. “And when post[-production] leaves California, we are all affected.”
In a visit to Pacific Palisades on Wednesday, top White House officials vowed to take over and speed up building permitting, a core state and local function, for rebuilding after the Los Angeles wildfires.
Administrators for the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, and Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, also held a discussion with Palisades fire victims and met with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a closed-door meeting about how to hasten rebuilding and address issues such as insurance payouts and wildfire prevention.
“Our conversations with Mayor Bass and Supervisor Barger about accelerating the rebuilding process in Los Angeles were productive,” Zeldin said. “Administrator Loeffler and I, on behalf of President Trump, asked these local elected officials to join us in this urgent effort, and I am hopeful great progress will be made in the days and weeks ahead.”
The visit followed a Jan. 27 executive order signed by President Trump to allow victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires to go around “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” state and local permitting processes.
Instead of going through building departments, such as the city of Los Angeles for the Palisades, or the county for Altadena, builders can instead “self-certify” that they have complied with state and local health and safety standards, if they are using federal emergency funds to rebuild, the order says.
The Small Business Administration has already launched a self-certification tool online, available to applicants who have been waiting more than 60 days for a building permit.
Loeffler said the “check and balance” will come from city and county inspections that must happen before a property is certified for occupancy.
Neither official could immediately recall another instance of the federal government preempting state and local permitting processes for disaster recovery, with Zeldin noting that “nothing like [these wildfires] has ever happened before.”
The visit underscored diverging narratives about the rebuilding process in L.A. While Trump described it as a “nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise” in his executive order, state and local officials said construction is underway and permitting is not the issue.
“Both administrators were engaged — sharing the President’s concerns while also listening to what I am seeing on the ground in Altadena,” Barger said in a statement to The Times. “I emphasized that 53% of impacted residents have taken no action to rebuild, not because of permitting delays, but because they lack the capital to move forward — an issue exacerbated by delayed insurance payouts. Many families have not submitted plans or entered the County’s rebuilding pipeline and are now facing a serious financial crisis.”
She added that the county’s current timeline for completing permit reviews is 31 business days.
Bass, who is facing renewed scrutiny after an analysis of the Palisades fire was watered down, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wednesday’s meeting.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on X following the executive order, that hundreds of homes are under construction, and that permitting timelines are at least twice as fast as before the fires. He said the president continues to withhold a federal aid package that would help families rebuild.
“The Feds need to release funding, not take over local permit approval speed — the main obstacle is COMMUNITIES NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO REBUILD,” the governor said.
Last month, on the anniversary of the fires, a bipartisan delegation of California legislators also penned a letter to Trump calling for additional federal support.
A December analysis by The Times found that permitting has gained momentum after a slow start, with the pace slower than after some disasters in the state, and faster than others.
As of Wednesday, more than 3,170 rebuilding permits have been issued in the fire areas, according to city and county dashboards.
But Zeldin used the opportunity to take jabs at Newsom, describing his approach to federal funding requests as “flawed.”
“The whole ask has been completely stepped on by the governor’s effort to campaign for president — to try to lob 11 insults a day and somehow fit in an ask for tens of billions of dollars in the middle of it,” he said. “It’s just not a good strategy.”
He declined to say whether additional funding will come from Congress, or how much.
Some Palisades residents said they would welcome whatever support they can get. Among them was Abby Waldorf, whose parents both lost their homes in the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park during the Palisades fire.
Waldorf said mobile homes don’t qualify for many city and state recovery programs, such as mortgage relief and disaster recovery aid, so they are “most at risk of not coming back.”
“Our community is very supportive of anyone that will help us move back quickly,” she said, “and at this point we haven’t seen that happen at the city, county or state level yet, and so anyone who can come in and do the job is welcome.”
Casual conversation in Hollywood often drifted to a familiar question: “Will Bob extend his contract again?”
Walt Disney Co.’s board had initially set Chief Executive Bob Iger’s target retirement date for 2015. The board instead renewed his contract multiple times, then called him back in 2022 — nearly a year after he had retired — when the last leadership handoff famously unraveled.
Disney’s struggles with succession over the decades have become epic dramas filled with false starts, larger-than-life leaders reticent to go and allegations of hollow searches for a new CEO. Twenty-plus years ago, one candidate for the top job — former Ebay and Hewlett-Packard chief Meg Whitman — withdrew from the running, suggesting the fix was in.
Disney’s board at the time wanted to give Iger, a longtime ABC executive who had toiled years in the shadow of former Chief Executive Michael Eisner, a shot.
With all that history, Disney’s board recognized its imperative of choreographing a meticulous transition. Iger, 74, was ready to go, and the process to find his successor was certain to go under the microscope.
“We had to be open — we couldn’t be questioned on it,” Disney Chairman James Gorman told The Times in an interview to shed light on what, until this week, had been a closely guarded boardroom process. “We didn’t just want to have this as a rigged game.”
This week, Disney’s board unanimously approved the selection of 54-year-old parks chief Josh D’Amaro to succeed Iger on March 18 when the company holds its annual meeting with shareholders. The switch will mark the end of an era, as Iger has been a towering presence in Hollywood for more than 20 years.
Two years of planning led up to D’Amaro’s selection. When Iger’s last successor, Bob Chapek, was ousted in November 2022, Disney’s board announced that Iger would return to serve as CEO for just two years.
But a series of high-level executive departures had thinned Disney’s executive bench. The board later acknowledged it needed additional time to plan succession and Iger’s contract was extended again, this time to December 2026.
Disney Chairman James Gorman, former chairman of Morgan Stanley, led the succession search that culminated this week.
(Hollie Adams / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Gorman — a former chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley — joined Disney’s board in the fall of 2024. He became chairman in January 2025 and succession planning began in earnest. Unlike in early 2020, when Iger was in charge of the board that tapped Chapek, this time the board formed a succession committee comprised of current and former CEOs of different firms.
The committee, led by Gorman, included General Motors Chief Executive Mary Barra, former CEO of Lululemon Athletica Calvin McDonald; and the former head of Britain’s Sky broadcasting, Sir Jeremy Darroch.
The search began with a list of about 100 potential candidates, Gorman said, including names provided by search firm Heidrick & Struggles. The group eventually culled the list to 30, he said, then narrowed it even more. They met with a few outsiders.
“We wanted to see what was out there … but it’s always difficult to go outside for any company,” Gorman said, adding that typically happens during a crisis, such as an abrupt CEO retirement due to illness or some other unforeseen event.
“You don’t take somebody from the industrials world and plop them in a media company,” he said. “That’s just too big a lift.”
Increasing the challenge, the 102-year-old company has a distinct corporate culture — one that still pays homage to founder Walt and instills in its employees (known internally as cast members) the need to serve as guardians of Disney’s treasured characters and brands.
Any outside pick would have been a risky bet.
Four Disney executives were under evaluation. D’Amaro, television and streaming chief Dana Walden, movie chief Alan Bergman and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro were all viewed as contenders for the job.
The board spent months sizing up strengths and weaknesses of external and internal candidates. Candidates made presentations to the board, laid out their visions for Disney’s future, received mentoring from Iger and spent hours meeting with Gorman and other succession committee members as well as the full board.
Hopefuls were questioned on their visions for the company. They were quizzed about such topics as teamwork and corporate culture.
“We wanted to know that whomever we picked beat all comers,” Gorman said. “And our people stress-tested unbelievably well. Yes, the [Disney executives] were given a huge advantage because they understand the culture, it’s a very unique culture, but it wasn’t just that.
“They were capable and they were ready,” Gorman said.
The board increasingly became comfortable with D’Amaro — who joined the company 28 years ago in Disneyland’s accounting division. For the past six years, D’Amaro has run Disney’s parks and experiences division, which now is the company’s largest business unit amid the decline of traditional television.
Walt Disney Co.’s board named Josh D’Amaro, right, as the new chief executive. Dana Walden, left, who is co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, will step into the role as president and chief creative officer.
(Walt Disney Company)
The board also carved out a new role as president and chief creative officer for longtime television executive Walden, 61, who becomes the first woman to serve as Disney’s president.
Gorman said Walden, 61, was impressive.
“She’s a strong leader. She’s decisive. She’s got great creative chops,” Gorman said. “She’s worked well with Alan Bergman as co-chair of entertainment. The idea is to ensure we bring creativity to all parts of the company and in all corners of the world.”
“A new CEO is massively, positively enabled by having their team, if they’re capable,” Gorman said. “And we are blessed with [our team] in place.”
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