Politics
L.A. fires: Will Trump immigration crackdown slow rebuilding?
The breeze was tinged with smoke from the fires that burned through Pacific Palisades as dozens of workers finished up the brick facade of a sprawling home in the tony Brentwood Park neighborhood.
The talk was in Spanish, an unremarkable fact given the language has been the lingua franca on most construction sites in Southern California for decades.
But that fact could be at the center of a leviathan clash of interests: the need to rebuild thousands of homes that were incinerated on a scale the city had never seen before, and the promises of an incoming president to deport a good percentage of the workers who would be needed to get that colossal undertaking done.
“Everyone is scared,” said Melvin Merino, 36, a painter at the home. Workers “are reluctant to talk about their immigration status out of fear it may be shared with immigration officials.”
Even in a city that is supportive of the immigrant population, his fears could make him and others cautious to take jobs in high profile areas such as the fire zone.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to execute the largest mass deportation program of unauthorized immigrants in U.S. history and “seal” the borders from immigrants. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, promises to bring back worksite enforcement.
Immigrants rights groups are bracing for widespread roundups and expulsions, holding legal workshops up and down the state in a bid to aid residents who might be stopped by federal authorities.
The threat is rattling the construction industry, which already has a labor shortage. The wildfires that leveled an estimated 12,000 structures in Pacific Palisades and Altadena will only intensify demand. As homeowners turn to contractors for the slow process of rebuilding, an immigration policy that deports undocumented workers or forces them underground may hinder the recovery.
“It’s really a perfect storm,” said Jennie Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum, a group that advocates for bipartisan immigration policies.
An estimated 41% of construction workers in California are immigrants, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders. But experts say that number is far higher in residential construction — much of which is nonunionized and not as heavily regulated as large capital projects. The pay is lower and many workers don’t have the legal status to be in the United States.
Trump officials have said the administration will prioritize criminals and those posing a threat to public safety, but their plans have yet to take clear shape. Many employers fear the administration will cast a wider net, and that could ravage industries such as hospitality, manufacturing, construction and agricultural, all heavily dependent on immigrant labor.
Yesenia Acosta leans in to get advice from an attorney during a public meeting to provide information about constitutional rights for immigrants by a consortium of legal counsel, attorneys, organizations, and community experts at the Robert F. Kennedy High School Auditorium in Delano, Calif.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
This month, immigration enforcement actions by Customs and Border Patrol in Bakersfield spread anxiety among agricultural workers after dozens of people were detained in a multiday operation. Accounts of Border Patrol stopping people spread on social media.
Growers reported a drop in workers showing up to their jobs, and advocacy groups saw a surge of frightened families show up at legal workshops on how to protect themselves against deportation.
In Southern California, a similar situation could hurt not only the rebuilding efforts but also preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
“There simply aren’t enough roofers and drywallers and all these other skilled trades in this country,” said Nik Theodore, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who studies disaster recovery in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy. “Then you put the backdrop of the campaign promises of the incoming Trump administration around immigration enforcement and deportations, we’re facing a quite serious situation.”
The U.S. construction industry has about 276,000 jobs that are unfilled. To address the tight labor market, the National Assn. of Home Builders has advocated for a guest worker program.
Figures vary but some estimates put the percentage of unauthorized workers in construction in the U.S. between 13% and 23%. Last year, California Lutheran University’s Center for Economics and Social Issues analyzed data from 2019 and found the figure was 28.7% in California and that those workers added $23 billion of value to the industry that year.
“There’s definitely labor shortages around the corner,” said Frank Hawk, executive secretary-treasurer of the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, which represents 90,000 union members in 12 Western states. Even before the wildfires, there were concerns about the region’s ability to deliver skilled workers for the Olympics, he said.
And he said that workers without legal status will be concerned about traveling far, where they might be vulnerable to immigration officials.
Others may go underground or just leave the country altogether. Builders worry that will further constrain the market, putting pressure on costs.
The Cal Lutheran study found that the median hourly wage of undocumented workers in California in all sectors was $13 — half the $26 that U.S.-born workers made. Authorized immigrants earned $19 an hour.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has outlined plans to boost assistance to millions of citizens who may face deportation, suggested this week that Los Angeles should use immigrant Mexican workers.
“When reconstruction process begins, of course it will require a lot of labor, and there’s no better construction workers than Mexicans,” she said during a news conference where she pushed back on right-wing portrayals of migrants as criminals.
A drone image shows the aftermath of the Palisades fire above Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu between Rambla Pacifico Street and Carbon Canyon Road on Jan. 15.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
One of the nation’s worst disasters, the Southern California fires have been compared to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, where a workforce of Latino immigrants poured in to rebuild the region. In Paradise, Calif., where fires swept through the heavily wooded Northern California town and killed 85 people six years ago, the rebuilding process still draws about 5,000 workers daily — many Latino immigrants — to erect walls, lay foundations and put in piping.
A lot of immigrants will flock to disaster zones in hopes of finding jobs, said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.
After Katrina, he said, “every five minutes employers were stopping at a day laborer corner and actually they were paying good.”
“But that’s where the injustices come,” he said. Unauthorized immigrants are especially vulnerable to unsafe conditions and other abuses. Many post-Katrina workers complained about not getting paid what they earned.
Merino, the painter, fears contractors won’t hire unauthorized immigrants to avoid dealing with federal authorities. Others think those with established contract work will probably keep getting hired, while newer immigrants may have trouble getting jobs.
If mass deportations were carried out, research shows the fallout could ripple through the entire building industry, leading to net job losses among U.S.-born construction workers.
“If you don’t have people framing the house, installing the drywall, you cannot have the American electricians and plumbers come in and do their work,” said Dayin Zhang, an assistant professor in real estate and urban economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Zhang co-wrote a recent study examining a U.S. immigration enforcement program that began in 2008 and resulted in the deportation of more than 300,000 people. The study found a large and persistent reduction in the construction workforce and residential homebuilding in counties after deportations occurred. Home prices also increased as the effects of a reduced housing supply dominated those of lesser demand from deported immigrants.
Widespread deportations are likely to have larger effects in Los Angeles because of the higher numbers of construction workers living in the area illegally, Zhang said.
“If anything, I would think that would be a much bigger distortion to the labor supply in the construction sector in the L.A. area,” he said.
In Malibu, Alberto Garcia, 38, an immigrant from Honduras, was volunteering Friday at the Malibu Community Labor Exchange.
“We’re very worried about deportations,” he said. Garcia hopes to secure a construction job in Malibu but fears any hiccup in his asylum case could hurt him.
“I was really trying to do everything by the book,” he said, flustered. “All we can do is put our trust in God.”
Another volunteer, Alejandro Perez, 45, who migrated from Mexico, applied for asylum but is uncertain about his status. He and other workers say they have no other option but to step out of their house each morning and find work.
“The need for food, bills and rent money obligate you to look for work,” he said. He specializes in roofing, drywall installation and painting, but worries contractors may not hire him because of his status.
Others are likely to stay home, said Oscar Malodrago, director of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange.
Hector Reyes owns a construction business that caters to clients on the Westside, including Pacific Palisades, Bel-Air and Westwood. He is typical of many immigrants who work in the trade.
Reyes gained skills on the job, eventually learned English, obtained a green card and became licensed. He built a decades long career in the trade that allowed him to raise a family, three children and a middle-class life.
Reyes has a small crew including his sons, but the threats feel familiar, reminiscent of the 1980s when immigration raids were common on worksites. “People were hiding in boxes, in attics.”
“I know people that don’t live here legally, but they are very decent people, they work their butts off,” he said.
Theodore said that, deportations or not, the city will depend on immigrants.
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say Los Angeles is gonna be rebuilt by immigrant workers,” he said.
Politics
Trump-aligned House holdouts accused of holding ‘life-saving’ veterans bill ‘hostage’ over SAVE America Act
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A sweeping veterans package supporters describe as the largest expansion of veterans’ health care and benefits in more than a decade is expected to return to the House floor when lawmakers come back from the July recess, but backers warn the legislation could once again become collateral damage in the Republican standoff over the SAVE America Act.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act rolls roughly 60 veterans bills into a package that would dramatically expand veterans’ health care and benefits. At its core, the legislation would cement veterans’ access to community care outside the VA while increasing benefits for combat-wounded veterans, caregivers and Gold Star families, expanding mental health services and enacting dozens of additional reforms.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., told Fox News Digital he intends to bring the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act back for a vote as soon as the House reconvenes next week.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – MARCH 17: Eugene Simpson, 29, from Dale City, Virginia goes through physical therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. with Michael Minor, a kinesiotherapist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on March 17, 2006 in Washington, D.C., USA. (Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images) (Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
The legislation was held up last month after a group of House Republicans joined Democrats to defeat a procedural vote, stopping the House from taking up the bill.
“I’m feeling good as long as my members stay with us on the rule,” Bost said. “Right now, there’s some politics being played, not about this bill, but just in general.”
The bill became entangled in a broader House Republican fight over the SAVE America Act, legislation championed by President Donald Trump that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
On June 30, the House voted on H. Res. 1398, the procedural rule governing floor consideration of several bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act and the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. The rule failed after 14 Republicans joined Democrats in opposition, preventing the House from taking up the veterans package and bringing floor business to a standstill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., claimed to have voted against the rules vote in protest against House leadership’s handling of the SAVE America Act. As a result, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent the members home early.
Bost accused the holdouts of effectively putting veterans legislation on hold.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (Photo by Alastair Pike / AFP) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Image)
‘IT’S A MESS’: GOP TURNS ON HOUSE CONSERVATIVES AS VOTER ID BLOCKADE STALLS TRUMP’S AGENDA
“They’re holding all bills hostage,” Bost said. “They’re not voting for any rule. Any bill that has to pass a rule before it comes to the floor—which this bill does because of its size—can’t move.”
Although Bost said he supports the SAVE America Act and has voted for it three times, he argued the Senate’s failure to act should not stop the House from advancing unrelated legislation.
“I agree with that bill,” Bost said. “But the Senate still has to do their work. We don’t stop our work because the Senate isn’t doing it.”
With 23 legislative days left in the Congressional session, Concerned Veterans for America Strategic Director John Byrnes, a supporter of the bill, said time is of the essence.
“There are lots and lots of things that have to get done,” Byrnes told Fox News Digital. “There’s also the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a must pass every year, so these things eat up time. There’s requirements to have debate on these, which eat up session time.”
Byrnes argued that every procedural delay pushes other legislation further down the calendar.
“This bill will save lives in 2027,” Byrnes said. “If we lose veterans because they could have had faster, better access to health care, we’re never going to get those veterans back.”
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill. ( )
TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE SENATE DESPITE REPUBLICAN REVOLT
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who also voted no on the procedural vote, told Fox News Digital that he has concerns about how the bill is financed.
“I appreciate what the chairman’s trying to do in some respects, but there’s a few issues,” Roy said.
Among them, Roy pointed to provisions offsetting new spending through changes affecting other veterans.
“You’re taxing certain veterans to provide some sort of benefits and changes to other veterans,” Roy said. “There are concerns about some of the pay-fors.”
Veterans of Foreign Wars has also taken issue with Section 108 of the bill, warning that it would codify changes to future disability ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea to help finance other veterans priorities.
But Bost said this is inaccurate.
“No veteran is going to have their benefits reduced,” Bost said. “If you’re receiving a benefit right now, that’s not going to be reduced at all.”
Roy, who previously served two years on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he supported a lot of what the bill was seeking to accomplish; but said other pieces of legislation are priorities, too.
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“There is a block of us for whom border security, the SAVE Act and demonstrating our leadership on major issues is critical,” Roy said. “Some of these other bills may or may not get hung up based on a desire of many in the conference to see movement on other things.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Luna’s office and the White House for comment.
Politics
Assassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame
WASHINGTON — Shortly before President Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran this week, Israeli officials presented his team with intelligence indicating Tehran was hatching new plots to kill him.
It was not the first such warning. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have tracked evidence for years of Iranian efforts to target the president, with signals only increasing since the start of the war.
Their desire to target Trump and his top aides began six years ago, just outside Baghdad International Airport, when the president ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general. The assassination of Qassem Suleimani brought the two countries to the brink of war.
Yet even as full-scale war was averted, top Iranian officials vowed revenge for the strike, authorizing attempts on the lives not just of the president, but of his secretary of State and national security advisor, among others, even after they had left office.
Now, calls for revenge have reached a sharper pitch in Tehran, after a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war in February.
At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies this week, red flags of vengeance flew throughout the capital as protesters explicitly called on their government to “kill Trump.” His son, Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, was absent from the commemorations, fearing assassination himself.
Mourners hold an anti-President Trump banner at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque during mass funeral prayers for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family in Tehran on Sunday.
(Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The prospect of foreign assassination plots targeting U.S. leaders puts the United States in dangerous new territory, where its embrace of political killings could ultimately place its own officials at unprecedented risk. And experts fear the existential threat of assassination has pushed peace further out of reach: When both sides believe their survival is at stake, the trust required for diplomacy becomes far harder to achieve.
Israeli news organizations have reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cited Iranian attempts to kill Trump in recent years as part of his case to go to war in the first place.
A U.S. official told The Times that a range of serious threats exist against the president, including from Iran, but that Israel’s intelligence pointed to a more specific plot. The official did not provide further details. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said in recent months that the government sees vengeance against U.S. officials as “its legitimate duty and right,” and “will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”
“The Suleimani killing accelerated a lifting of restraints on foreign assassinations — and the taboo on targeting and killing foreign leaders, with U.S. military assets, has been more or less lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political professor at George Washington University.
“If the United States sets the example of how to conduct international relations, and it is using assassination of foreign leaders as a political weapon, it’s only logical that other countries will be more inclined to also engage in assassinations,” Dallek added. “It does seem likely that Trump will have a bigger target on his back.”
Returning from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump was forced to switch back to an old model of Air Force One — equipped with specialized defensive technologies — from a new plane given as a gift by Qatar, after the Secret Service warned of potential threats to the aircraft from Iran.
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters aboard the plane. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long.”
The threat has remained on his mind in the days since. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump told the reporter, “I hope you’ll miss me,” adding that he has “been on their list for a long time.” And in a subsequent social media post Friday night, he warned of a catastrophic response he instructed the administration to pursue in the event Tehran succeeds.
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”
The United States had a decades-old prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders before Trump’s presidency, codified in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 over concerns of a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro.
The policy was only strengthened further by subsequent administrations, fearing a new international standard for targeted killings could result in unintended consequences in the halls of Washington.
Other administrations have been accused of targeting foreign leaders before. Under the Obama administration, an international coalition targeting the Libyan regime of Moammar Kadafi during the country’s 2011 civil war struck his fleeing convoy, leading to his capture and killing by rebel fighters.
But experts say Trump’s explicit targeting of Suleimani and Khamenei — and his public celebration of their deaths — marks a new paradigm.
“Through words and actions, President Trump has done more to normalize political violence than any other U.S. president, certainly in modern times,” said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism.”
“On the international front alone, the president routinely brags about killing Iranian leaders and seizing the leader of Venezuela, among others,” he added, “to the point that assassination is becoming the new normal in international politics.”
Politics
Trump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign
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A bipartisan housing bill became law Saturday at midnight after President Donald Trump declined to sign it, capping a weeks-long saga over whether the president would veto the measure amid frustrations with Congress over his stalled agenda.
Trump refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — legislation aimed at expanding the nation’s housing stock and lowering costs — in an attempt to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, despite the housing bill clearing both chambers with overwhelming majorities.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” he declared on Truth Social Friday morning.
The Trump-backed election measure, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and impose voter ID requirements, has struggled to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Meanwhile, the House has not passed a version of the bill that includes the president’s proposed crackdown on mail-in voting and banning men from women’s sports.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
Under the U.S. Constitution, Trump had 10 days, not including Sundays, to sign or veto the housing measure after the House formally transmitted the legislation to the White House in late June. The president ultimately chose neither option, allowing the measure to become law without his signature.
Though Trump declined to veto the legislation, he sharply criticized elements of the bill and argued it should not have been a legislative priority in recent weeks.
“It’s so unimportant … compared to the SAVE America Act,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in late June. “I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says. It’s saving America from crooked elections.”
Trump went on to call the housing bill “a yawn,” adding, “compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
It would have taken a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a veto — a margin the House and Senate exceeded when they passed the legislation. However, it remains unclear whether so many Republicans would have defied the president had he vetoed the bill.
Trump also appeared to criticize the bill over a provision restricting Wall Street investors from purchasing single-family homes — a policy he first proposed during his January State of the Union address and later urged Congress to pass. Trump previously argued the investor ban would give individual homebuyers a leg up against private equity firms in the housing market.
“I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump later told reporters, appearing to reference the provision. “These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They’ve become rich. I don’t want to hurt them either. What you want to do is what’s good for everyone, get the interest rates down.”
The law also aims to boost housing supply by streamlining federal environmental reviews, loosening rules around the construction of factory-built homes, and incentivizing local governments to modify their zoning laws to allow more housing, among roughly 60 provisions.
Trump’s souring on the legislation created headaches for Republicans, who touted the bill as an affordability win as voters grapple with high housing costs.
“It’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a retiring lawmaker who lost re-election to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote on social media. “We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!”
Construction workers stand on the roof of homes under construction at a new housing development on June 24, 2026, in Valencia, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WARREN TELLS TRUMP TO ‘SIGN THE DAMN BILL’ AS BIPARTISAN HOUSING PACKAGE REMAINS STALLED IN WASHINGTON
Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the legislation at the U.S. Capitol in June with GOP leaders. The stage had already been set, with at least one senior Republican arriving unaware the president had called off the event shortly before it was scheduled to begin.
The president then declared he would not sign the legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, despite Senate GOP leaders insisting the votes do not exist to advance the measure.
Trump has also expressed frustration with the Republican-controlled Senate for declining to weaken the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the upper chamber.
“GET SMART REPUBLICANS, IF YOU DON’T, YOU WON’T BE IN OFFICE FOR LONG!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Before Trump came out against the bill, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history” and said it included an array of policies “long championed” by Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Trump political operative James Blair touted the legislation for including the president’s Wall Street investor ban, which he referred to as a “signature commitment.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued that Republicans will still promote the landmark housing bill ahead of November.
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“We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively,” the speaker recently told reporters, referring to Trump. “And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”
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