Texas has become the centre of a new United States deportation push focused on construction workers, according to a Guardian investigation published on October 21. The investigation reported more than 12,000 immigration arrests in Texas in July alone — almost twice the total in Florida or California — and said many of those detained were Hispanic construction workers. Of every 10 construction workers in Texas, four are foreign-born, the Guardian reported.

Source: The Guardian via The Bull Post

Houston immigration lawyer Jacob Monty told the Guardian that agents in unmarked vehicles wait near gas stations, corner stores and highways in the early morning. “In Texas, you go deer hunting in the early morning,” Monty said. “That's what they are doing. They are hunting for construction workers, early in the morning, like you would an animal.” Monty called the workers “low-hanging fruit” for enforcement, in his words to the Guardian.

Source: ENM News

The Guardian reported the case of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a house framer in Houston who had lived in the United States for 35 years. According to the Guardian's reporting and his family's account, Salgado was shot through the window of his van on July 7 after ICE officers allegedly mistook him for another man they were searching for. His sons, who are United States citizens, told the Guardian they are seeking justice for their father. Awaaz Punjab is reporting the shooting as the Guardian and the family have described it; ICE's own account of that shooting was not included in the reports reviewed for this story.

Source: The Guardian via The Bull Post

The Guardian also reported the account of Marco Antonio Osorio, 50, a Houston-area cable-layer who said he was stopped on a freeway on June 10, told officers his daughter serves as a United States Marine and showed a receipt for a residency application, and was then held in immigration detention for 40 days before Monty secured his release. Osorio's account is presented here as he told it to the Guardian.

Source: The Guardian via The Bull Post

Builders say sites are slowing and homes are costing more

In the Rio Grande Valley, site manager Ronnie Cavazos told the Guardian that projects that took six months are now taking 10 months, that he paused construction for 60 days in the summer for lack of framers, and that some crews slept on site because they were afraid of being stopped on the drive to work. Benny Melendez of the South Texas Builders Association told the Guardian that 10 of his workers had been taken by ICE and that completed homes were costing $30,000 or more above the usual price — yaani about 30,000 dollars extra per home.

Source: The Guardian via The Bull Post

Separate reporting on federal data said ICE made 49,571 arrests nationally in July, the largest monthly figure reported since the start of President Donald Trump's second administration, with nearly 20,000 of July's arrests in Texas and Florida combined. That national figure supports the scale described by the Guardian, though the two reports count the state totals differently.

Source: Rocket News