President Trump’s planned ban on immigrants will quickly expose the critical need for foreign-born workers in key sectors.
Immigrants make up an estimated 17% of the overall U.S. workforce. But many essential service employees are immigrants, at a much higher rate in some occupations. Commercial non-family farming, especially for produce, would collapse without foreign-born workers. Healthcare would be curtailed due to staffing shortages. More than a third of California nurses are immigrants, as well as 29% of nurses in New York and New Jersey. One quarter of practicing physicians are foreign-born. (Go here).
The share of non-native construction workers are California (42%), Texas (41%), New York (37%), Nevada (37%) and Florida (35%). The construction trades with the greatest share of immigrant workers include plasterers and stucco masons (54%); drywall installers, ceiling tile installers and tapers (49%); and roofers (45%). (Go here.)
And I have not even started in on the role of foreign-born experts in applied science and information