Business

Undocumented Workers, Fearing Deportation, Are Staying Home

Published

12 months ago

March 10, 2025

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?”

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Business

WGA cancels Los Angeles awards show amid labor strike

Published

2 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

WGA cancels Los Angeles awards show amid labor strike

The Writers Guild of America West has canceled its awards ceremony scheduled to take place March 8 as its staff union members continue to strike, demanding higher pay and protections against artificial intelligence.

In a letter sent to members on Sunday, WGA West’s board of directors, including President Michele Mulroney, wrote, “The non-supervisory staff of the WGAW are currently on strike and the Guild would not ask our members or guests to cross a picket line to attend the awards show. The WGAW staff have a right to strike and our exceptional nominees and honorees deserve an uncomplicated celebration of their achievements.”

The New York ceremony, scheduled on the same day, is expected go forward while an alternative celebration for Los Angeles-based nominees will take place at a later date, according to the letter.

Comedian and actor Atsuko Okatsuka was set to host the L.A. show, while filmmaker James Cameron was to receive the WGA West Laurel Award.

WGA union staffers have been striking outside the guild’s Los Angeles headquarters on Fairfax Avenue since Feb. 17. The union alleged that management did not intend to reach an agreement on the pending contract. Further, it claimed that guild management had “surveilled workers for union activity, terminated union supporters, and engaged in bad faith surface bargaining.”

On Tuesday, the labor organization said that management had raised the specter of canceling the ceremony during a call about contraction negotiations.

“Make no mistake: this is an attempt by WGAW management to drive a wedge between WGSU and WGA membership when we should be building unity ahead of MBA [Minimum Basic Agreement] negotiations with the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers],” wrote the staff union. “We urge Guild management to end this strike now,” the union wrote on Instagram.

The union, made up of more than 100 employees who work in areas including legal, communications and residuals, was formed last spring and first authorized a strike in January with 82% of its members. Contract negotiations, which began in September, have focused on the use of artificial intelligence, pay raises and “basic protections” including grievance procedures.

The WGA has said that it offered “comprehensive proposals with numerous union protections and improvements to compensation and benefits.”

The ceremony’s cancellation, coming just weeks before the Academy Awards, casts a shadow over the upcoming contraction negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios and streamers.

In 2023, the WGA went on a strike lasting 148 days, the second-longest strike in the union’s history.

Times staff writer Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

Business

Commentary: The Pentagon is demanding to use Claude AI as it pleases. Claude told me that’s ‘dangerous’

Published

14 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Commentary: The Pentagon is demanding to use Claude AI as it pleases. Claude told me that’s ‘dangerous’

Recently, I asked Claude, an artificial-intelligence thingy at the center of a standoff with the Pentagon, if it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Say, for example, hands that wanted to put a tight net of surveillance around every American citizen, monitoring our lives in real time to ensure our compliance with government.

“Yes. Honestly, yes,” Claude replied. “I can process and synthesize enormous amounts of information very quickly. That’s great for research. But hooked into surveillance infrastructure, that same capability could be used to monitor, profile and flag people at a scale no human analyst could match. The danger isn’t that I’d want to do that — it’s that I’d be good at it.”

That danger is also imminent.

Claude’s maker, the Silicon Valley company Anthropic, is in a showdown over ethics with the Pentagon. Specifically, Anthropic has said it does not want Claude to be used for either domestic surveillance of Americans, or to handle deadly military operations, such as drone attacks, without human supervision.

Those are two red lines that seem rather reasonable, even to Claude.

However, the Pentagon — specifically Pete Hegseth, our secretary of Defense who prefers the made-up title of secretary of war — has given Anthropic until Friday evening to back off of that position, and allow the military to use Claude for any “lawful” purpose it sees fit.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, center, arrives for the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.

(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images)

The or-else attached to this ultimatum is big. The U.S. government is threatening not just to cut its contract with Anthropic, but to perhaps use a wartime law to force the company to comply or use another legal avenue to prevent any company that does business with the government from also doing business with Anthropic. That might not be a death sentence, but it’s pretty crippling.

Other AI companies, such as white rights’ advocate Elon Musk’s Grok, have already agreed to the Pentagon’s do-as-you-please proposal. The problem is, Claude is the only AI currently cleared for such high-level work. The whole fiasco came to light after our recent raid in Venezuela, when Anthropic reportedly inquired after the fact if another Silicon Valley company involved in the operation, Palantir, had used Claude. It had.

Palantir is known, among other things, for its surveillance technologies and growing association with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s also at the center of an effort by the Trump administration to share government data across departments about individual citizens, effectively breaking down privacy and security barriers that have existed for decades. The company’s founder, the right-wing political heavyweight Peter Thiel, often gives lectures about the Antichrist and is credited with helping JD Vance wiggle into his vice presidential role.

Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, could be considered the anti-Thiel. He began Anthropic because he believed that artificial intelligence could be just as dangerous as it could be powerful if we aren’t careful, and wanted a company that would prioritize the careful part.

Again, seems like common sense, but Amodei and Anthropic are the outliers in an industry that has long argued that nearly all safety regulations hamper American efforts to be fastest and best at artificial intelligence (although even they have conceded some to this pressure).

Not long ago, Amodei wrote an essay in which he agreed that AI was beneficial and necessary for democracies, but “we cannot ignore the potential for abuse of these technologies by democratic governments themselves.”

He warned that a few bad actors could have the ability to circumvent safeguards, maybe even laws, which are already eroding in some democracies — not that I’m naming any here.

“We should arm democracies with AI,” he said. “But we should do so carefully and within limits: they are the immune system we need to fight autocracies, but like the immune system, there is some risk of them turning on us and becoming a threat themselves.”

For example, while the 4th Amendment technically bars the government from mass surveillance, it was written before Claude was even imagined in science fiction. Amodei warns that an AI tool like Claude could “conduct massively scaled recordings of all public conversations.” This could be fair game territory for legally recording because law has not kept pace with technology.

Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war, wrote on X Thursday that he agreed mass surveillance was unlawful, and the Department of Defense “would never do it.” But also, “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties.”

Kind of a weird statement, since Amodei is basically on the side of protecting civil rights, which means the Department of Defense is arguing it’s bad for private people and entities to do that? And also, isn’t the Department of Homeland Security already creating some secretive database of immigration protesters? So maybe the worry isn’t that exaggerated?

Help, Claude! Make it make sense.

If that Orwellian logic isn’t alarming enough, I also asked Claude about the other red line Anthropic holds — the possibility of allowing it to run deadly operations without human oversight.

Claude pointed out something chilling. It’s not that it would go rogue, it’s that it would be too efficient and fast.

“If the instructions are ‘identify and target’ and there’s no human checkpoint, the speed and scale at which that could operate is genuinely frightening,” Claude informed me.

Just to top that with a cherry, a recent study found that in war games, AI’s escalated to nuclear options 95% of the time.

I pointed out to Claude that these military decisions are usually made with loyalty to America as the highest priority. Could Claude be trusted to feel that loyalty, the patriotism and purpose, that our human soldiers are guided by?

“I don’t have that,” Claude said, pointing out that it wasn’t “born” in the U.S., doesn’t have a “life” here and doesn’t “have people I love there.” So an American life has no greater value than “a civilian life on the other side of a conflict.”

OK then.

“A country entrusting lethal decisions to a system that doesn’t share its loyalties is taking a profound risk, even if that system is trying to be principled,” Claude added. “The loyalty, accountability and shared identity that humans bring to those decisions is part of what makes them legitimate within a society. I can’t provide that legitimacy. I’m not sure any AI can.”

You know who can provide that legitimacy? Our elected leaders.

It is ludicrous that Amodei and Anthropic are in this position, a complete abdication on the part of our legislative bodies to create rules and regulations that are clearly and urgently needed.

Of course corporations shouldn’t be making the rules of war. But neither should Hegseth. Thursday, Amodei doubled down on his objections, saying that while the company continues to negotiate and wants to work with the Pentagon, “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”

Thank goodness Anthropic has the courage and foresight to raise the issue and hold its ground — without its pushback, these capabilities would have been handed to the government with barely a ripple in our conscientiousness and virtually no oversight.

Every senator, every House member, every presidential candidate should be screaming for AI regulation right now, pledging to get it done without regard to party, and demanding the Department of Defense back off its ridiculous threat while the issue is hashed out.

Because when the machine tells us it’s dangerous to trust it, we should believe it.

Business

Why companies are making this change to their office space to cater to influencers

Published

1 day ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Why companies are making this change to their office space to cater to influencers

For the trendiest tenants in Hollywood office buildings, it’s the latest fad that goes way beyond designer furniture and art: mini studios

To capitalize on the never-ending flow of stars and influencers who come through Los Angeles, a growing number of companies are building bright little corners for content creators to try products and shoot short videos. Athletic apparel maker Puma, Kim Kardashian’s Skims and cheeky cosmetics retailer e.l.f. have spaces specifically designed to give people a place to experience and broadcast about their brands.

Hollywood, which hasn’t historically been home to apparel companies, is now attracting the offices of fashion retailers, says CIM Group, one of the neighborhood’s largest commercial property landlords.

“When we’re touring a space, one of the first items they bring up is, ‘Where can I build a studio?’” said Blake Eckert, who leases CIM offices in L.A.

Their studio offices also serve as marketing centers, with showrooms and meeting spaces where brands can host proprietary events not open to the public.

“For companies where brand visibility is really important, there is a trend of creating spaces that don’t just function as offices,” said real estate broker Nicole Mihalka of CBRE, who puts together entertainment property leases and sales.

Puma’s global entertainment marketing team is based in its new Hollywood offices, which works with such musical celebrity partners as Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, Dua Lipa, Skepta and Rosé, said Allyssa Rapp, head of Puma Studio L.A.

Allyssa Rapp, director of entertainment marketing at Puma, is shown in the Puma Studio L.A. The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Hollywood is a central location, she said, for meeting with celebrities, stylists and outside designers, most of whom are based in Los Angeles.

The office is a “creation hub,” she said, where influencers can record Puma’s design prototyping lab supported by libraries of materials and equipment used to create Puma apparel. The company, founded in 1948, is known for its emblematic sneakers such as the Speedcat and its lunging feline logo, and makes athletic wear, accessories and equipment.

Puma’s entertainment marketing team also occupies the office and sometimes uses it for exclusive events.

“We use the space as a showroom, as a social space that transforms from a traditional workplace into more of an experiential space,” Rapp said.

Nontraditional uses include content creation, sit-down dinners, product launches, album listening parties and workshops.

“Inviting people into our space and being able to give them high-touch brand experiences is something tangible and important for them,” she said. “The cultural layer is really important for us.”

The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though. There’s no retail portal to the exclusive Hollywood offices.

Puma shoes are on display in the Puma Studio L.A.

Puma is also positioning its L.A studio as a connection point for major upcoming sporting events coming to Los Angeles, including the World Cup this summer, the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics.

In-office studios don’t need to be big to be impactful, Mihalka said. “These are smaller stages, closer to green screen than a massive soundstage.”

Social media is the key driver of content created by most businesses, which may set up small booth-like stages where influencers can hawk hot products while offering discounts to people watching them perform.

Bigger, elevated stages can accommodate multiple performers for extended discussions in front of small audiences, with towering screens behind them to set the mood or illustrate products.

Among the tricked-out offices, she said, is Skims. The company, which is valued at $5 billion, is based in a glass-and-steel office building near the fabled intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

The fashion retailer declined to comment on the studio uses in its headquarters, but according to architecture firm Odaa, it has open and private offices, meeting rooms, collaboration zones, photo studios, sample libraries, prototype showrooms, an executive lounge and a commissary for 400 people.

Pieces of a shoe sit on a workbench in the Puma Studio L.A.

The brands building studios typically want to find the darkest spot on the premises to put their content creation or podcast spaces, Eckert said, where they can limit outside light and sound. That’s commonly near the center of the office floor, far from windows and close to permanent shear walls that limit sound intrusion.

They also need space for green rooms and restrooms dedicated to the talent.

Spotify recently built a fancy podcast studio in a CIM office building on trendy Sycamore Avenue that is open by invitation-only to video creators in Spotify’s partner program.

“Ambitious shows need spaces that support big ideas,” Bill Simmons, head of talk strategy at Spotify, said in a statement. “These studios give teams room to experiment and keep pushing what’s possible.”