ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Foreign-born workers, including those without legal status, are vital to the U.S. economy, but ICE crackdowns are making some fear showing up for work. Our colleagues over at The Indicator, Darian Woods and Adrian Ma, wanted to know just how widespread these absences are.
DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: When you bite into your summer cherries, they might have been picked by Gloria.
GLORIA: (Speaking Spanish).
WOODS: She's a cherry picker in Washington state.
GLORIA: (Through interpreter) We start at 6 in the morning. We leave at midnight, 1 in the morning. The truth is, it's very tiring, and we leave with heavy feet. But we keep going for a good future and to keep being here, paying our bills and our taxes.
ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: But like 1 in 3 crop pickers, she doesn't have legal status or work authorization. Lately, Gloria has been skipping a few shifts.
GLORIA: (Through interpreter) We don't go in because we see that immigration is there at the worksites.
WOODS: In late May, the Trump administration ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ramp up arrests. Around 1,200 people were being arrested each day in June, more than triple the number under Biden.
GLORIA: (Through interpreter) Many places are being left without workers, and the fruit is going to waste out of fear, not because people don't want to work.
WOODS: From California to Texas, we've heard reports of sparse orchards and vegetables rotting in the fields as foreign-born workers dodge federal agents. We wanted to know about other industries, too. Large shares of immigrants also work in construction.
MA: Brian Turmail is a spokesperson for the Associated General Contractors of America.
BRIAN TURMAIL: The overwhelming response that we're getting is that there's a lot of anxiety among the workforce.
MA: As of yet, though, those workers, by and large, keep coming to their construction sites. And what about another big industry for immigrants? - long-term care for elderly and disabled people. One in 3 long-term care workers are immigrants. Arnulfo De La Cruz represents long-term care workers in California. He's president of the Union SEIU 2015.
WOODS: Arnulfo has heard about immigration agents from his members.
ARNULFO DE LA CRUZ: We've had reports that, you know, there's been enforcement actions at nursing homes and skilled care facilities.
MA: Now on the whole, the workers he represents are still showing up for work, but he says there's one action that could have a big impact on the long-term care workforce. The Trump administration is ending temporary protected status for people from countries like Venezuela, Honduras and Nicaragua. So a lot of workers will be required to leave the country soon unless they find another legal pathway.
WOODS: Arnulfo recalls a worker from El Salvador who has temporary protected status, and she's extremely worried. El Salvador's status is scheduled to end next year.
DE LA CRUZ: It's funny because one of the first things she mentioned is, who's going to care for the people that I'm caring for, right?
MA: We reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask whether its leadership was concerned by worker absences. And we got a response from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. (Reading) Let's be clear - if there was any correlation between rampant illegal immigration and a good economy, Biden would have had a booming economy.
WOODS: We actually checked the numbers, by the way, and the economy grew more under Joe Biden than the first Donald Trump administration, even when you control for price and population growth.
MA: The policy mega bill that became law last week, that will triple the detention budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It'll also likely mean funding for thousands more immigration agents to accelerate deportations.
WOODS: Darian Woods.
MA: Adrian Ma, NPR News.
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