1.2 million immigrants are gone from U.S. labor force, early data show

It's tomato season, and Lidia is harvesting on farms in California's Central Valley.

- BY COREY WILLIAMS

MIGRANT workers harvest romaine lettuce in late April in King City, Calif.

She is also anxious. Attention from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could upend her life more than 23 years after she illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenager.

"The worry is they'll pull you over when you're driving and ask for your papers," said Lidia, who spoke on condition that only her first name be used because of her fears of deportation. "We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent."

As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. were being held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Trump's stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation's labor force.

More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.

Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce, and the data show 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she said.

The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.