How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California's economy

[Zorro]

President Trump promised a new “golden age” for America, but it’s been anything but that for Los Angeles, with its dependence on trade and immigrant labor — two backbones of the region’s economy.

First, the president’s tariffs cut deeply into traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and now his push to arrest undocumented immigrants at work sites, which has spurred massive protests after Trump deployed the National Guard, threatens a one-two punch to a region just starting its recovery from January’s firestorms.

“The reality is that the U.S. economy is largely today dependent upon foreign born labor — and in California more so,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank in Washington. “For the country as a whole, we’re getting towards 1 out of 5 jobs being filled currently by somebody who was born abroad. In California, it’s more like 1 in 3.”

The crackdown, depending on its scope and scale, could come at a price for industries across Los Angeles and California that have become increasingly dependent on immigrants, here legally or not, economists say.

The surge in international migration in the last two decades — both by legal and undocumented workers — has been key to the growth of California’s economy. A number of industries such as construction, leisure and hospitality, health care and agriculture rely heavily on immigrant workers.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-10/how-the-federal-immigration-raids-could-disrupt-californias-economy