Revoked Visa Programs, Increased Deportations Heighten Risks To Construction Labor Force

The ice cream shop in CityPlace Doral would normally be bustling on a Tuesday afternoon when the temperature is over 90 degrees. But last week, no one was sitting to enjoy their gelato or linger over a coffee. 

In the city of Doral in Miami-Dade County, nicknamed Doralzuela for its hefty Venezuelan community, typically lively streets are noticeably quieter in recent months, shop owners and employees told Bisnow. The customers, most of whom are immigrants, who visit their stores are staying home out of fear of being deported.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have lived in U.S. cities like Doral legally for years have had their legal status revoked by the Trump administration in recent months. In South Florida — which has the highest concentration of residents from the targeted nations — the policies have already had an impact on industries and neighborhoods that rely on immigrant workers.

Employers are now faced with making a choice between keeping their employees without legal documentation and facing the consequences, or firing them — which could be a significant loss to South Florida’s construction and development workforce.

“The scared people are calling my office, because it's about working. ‘I have to go to work. I can't get to work because of this, and I'm scared, and I can't drive because my papers are about to expire,’” said Hector Diaz, managing partner with Your Immigration Attorney. “They've heard so many rumors from other friends that people have been taken into custody.

“There’s just so much fear out there that I don’t know if people who are not immigrants can relate to it.” 

The fear has only increased in recent weeks as the Trump administration has ratcheted up its mass deportation campaign. Besides targeting immigrants who entered the country illegally, the White House has also widened the pool of people at risk of deportation by eliminating temporary protected status for Venezuelans and the CHNV humanitarian parole program's work visas.

The CHNV program, instated in 2023 by Joe Biden’s administration, allowed immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who passed background checks, secured U.S.-based sponsors and purchased their own plane tickets to enter the country legally and obtain work authorization for two years, according to Refugees International.

More than 500,000 immigrants relied on the program when the Supreme Court in May allowed Trump’s effort to revoke the protections to proceed. The Department of Homeland Security began issuing notices of termination June 12, encouraging parolees to “self-deport” immediately.

“President Trump promised to restore sanity to America’s immigration system and end Biden’s dangerous policies that let countless unvetted aliens enter the United States,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “Terminating the CHNV Parole is a key part of fulfilling that promise.”

The push followed the Trump administration's February termination of the 2023 temporary protected status designation for Venezuelan immigrants. Florida leads the nation in the number of immigrants with TPS, with more than 350,000 recipients. Those with the 2023 designation lost their legal immigration status on April 7.

Employers were required to have terminated employees impacted by the end of these protections who don't have alternative work authorization by June 23, said Scott Bettridge, an attorney in Cozen O’Connor’s immigration practice. 

“They should just be prepared,” Bettridge said of contractors and developers who employed workers with CHNV and TPS designations. “Just trying to ensure that their workforce is as legal and lawful as possible, because raids and visits are coming.” 

If they don’t, they can face a fine of $1K per day after three violations within 24 months and civil or criminal penalties, including loss of state licenses and permits through Florida Senate Bill 1718, according to Bilzin Sumberg.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 1718 into law in 2023, requiring private employers with 25 or more workers to use the federal E-Verify system to check the eligibility status of their employees and enforce legal work authorization.

The revocation of work visas is expected to have significant effects on South Florida’s construction and development industry. Employers could be facing a loss of up to a third of their workforce — something most aren’t prepared for but should keep in mind, Bettridge said.

“I think one of the key things is employers, I think they should have a plan in place for staffing,” Bettridge said. “And I think they want to have a plan in place. This could just be the tip of the iceberg. They could revoke other programs.”

But companies that could be affected have stayed quiet. Bisnow reached out to more than 20 construction and development firms based in South Florida or with local projects, all of which declined to comment or didn't respond.

The construction industry needs more than 430,000 additional construction workers in 2025 to meet demand, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. With firms struggling to hire enough American-born workers, immigrants now make up a record-high proportion of the construction workforce at more than 25%, according to a report by the National Association of Home Builders.

Growing immigration enforcement actions have fueled fears that they could risk stalling projects and driving up costs across the sector.

“We’ve been fighting to grow and stabilize the workforce for generations, and this is just another layer on top,” said Peter Dyga, president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors for the Florida East Coast Chapter.

Now, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement's renewed focus on workplaces, construction sites are in the spotlight.

In May, ICE conducted a large-scale raid at a Hedrick Brothers construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, arresting more than 100 unauthorized immigrants.

Dyga said he spoke with the companies affected by the raid. Their leaders have faced public backlash and began receiving death threats from “left-of-center groups,” he said.

“They're basically now saying, ‘You called this enforcement action on yourself so that you could deport your own workers,’ which is an insane position,” Dyga said.

West Palm Beach-based Hedrick Brothers Construction didn't respond to Bisnow’s request for comment.

The combination of workplace raids and the rollback of legal protections is part of an effort by the Trump administration to shift workforce opportunities back to American-born citizens.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that immigrants and their immediate family members who used the parole programs were granted “opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers.”

The work visa program cuts have led to protests at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, a city where more than 80,000 residents are of Venezuelan descent, Bloomberg reported.

“The only information we have is that people under TPS are no longer able to work and therefore employers have to make a decision on whether they will have to let them go or not,” Doral Mayor Christi Fraga told Bloomberg.

While Trump promised during his campaign to deport millions of immigrants lacking permanent legal status, the stripping of legal work protections “happened overnight,” Bettridge said. South Florida neighborhoods with high concentrations of Latin American immigrants like Doral are already struggling with the impacts.

Some businesses in the area, including industrial, transportation and logistics firms, have already begun letting their employees go in light of programs being revoked, staff being detained at immigration courts or workers relocating, Bloomberg reported.

Doral officials didn't respond to Bisnow’s multiple requests for comment.

Diaz, the immigration attorney, said the policy changes and enforcement actions will have a “devastating” effect on Miami and a chilling effect on its workforce.

“They are the people that are doing the cranes, the bulldozers, the cement block, all the heavy lifting that is physically taxing,” Diaz said. “They are the ones doing it, and without them doing it, it's going to be hard to integrate an American workforce that's not really interested in doing the hard labor that it takes to do all the construction that's being done.”