Dive Brief:
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Immigrants to the U.S. from the countries listed in President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration face greater challenges around employment, income potential and home buying as compared to immigrants from other countries and domestic-born citizens, according to a report by Trulia.
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Immigrants from the travel-ban countries who have lived in the U.S. longer closed those gaps in some measures and outpaced other residents with respect to securing the income required to own a home.
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According to the report, 11.5% of recent immigrants born in those countries owned a home within five years, compared to 18% of all foreign-born households. After 10 years of living the in the U.S., however, 61.4% of immigrants from the former group owned, compared to 59.1% of all foreign-born households. Overall, the U.S. homeownership rate was 63.7% during the fourth quarter of 2016.
Dive Insight:
While it's too soon to find a causal relationship between Trump's executive order on immigration and the homeownership rate for recent immigrants from these countries, the order has had other impacts. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, businesses serving primarily immigrant populations — hailing from all nations — are seeing activity slow as customers, concerned about the heightened presence of immigration authorities, stay away.
Construction has long operated under a "don't-ask-don't-tell" mentality when it comes to employing immigrants without the proper work credentials — a system that may falter under the Trump administration's promise of stricter immigration policies. Trump's January executive order expanding the scope of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the southern U.S. border is likely to impact an industry that employed an estimated 15% undocumented workers as of 2012.
Immigrant workers, much like consumers, could start to turn away from the industry amid reports — and, more broadly, fears — of ICE site raids. The potential drop-off in available labor, in turn, could hamper businesses that are already finding themselves strapped for skilled workers.
There are a number of ways construction companies can attract, retain and support immigrant workers. Among them, encouraging multi-lingual education in Spanish and English on the job site for workers of all levels and establishing discrimination reporting protocols.
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