Builders say ICE roundups are emptying Jacksonville job sites, could raise new home prices

ICE arrests are at a record high, and the price of your next home could skyrocket. Local builders say immigration roundups are emptying job sites across Jacksonville and slowing construction to a crawl.

Builders say it’s not just who’s getting detained. It’s who’s not showing up to work. That ripple effect could end up hitting your wallet.

“Those areas have been depleted, 60 to 70 percent in our workforce, to the point where there’s empty job sites because there’s no one to frame a house,” said Scott Brannock, president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association.

“It’s becoming a real snowball effect, and right now we see no relief in sight,” Brannock said.

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New data released Thursday by Homeland Security shows ICE deportations and arrests hit a record high. In fiscal year 2026, there were more than 491,000 ICE arrests and more than 483,000 deportations, according to DHS.

With ICE roundups happening on private job sites, the snowball effect on the building industry keeps Brannock up at night. As ICE roundups increase, targeting residential and commercial build sites, labor dwindles, with workers here both legally and illegally afraid to show up.

“They’re harassed, they’re profiled. They’re detained, some multiple times, just because they are a Hispanic worker on a job site,” Brannock said.

The impact doesn’t stop there. Fewer workers mean longer delays and higher costs to complete builds.

“Every single day that that job site sits without someone on it performing work is interest,” Brannock said.

The homeowner or buyer eats the final cost.

“There are trades that are charging a premium because they have to account for the potential immigration enforcement that they’re going to run into,” Brannock said.

Brannock says framing labor alone has more than doubled, pushing the cost of a new home up as much as 15 to 20 percent. According to the Northeast Florida Builders Association, framing labor per home was $10,000 before and is now $22,000 to $26,000.

Florida was hit especially hard. According to the Deportation Data Project, ICE detentions in Jacksonville jumped from 40 in January 2025 to 377 in July of this year.

Action News Jax asked Homeland Security and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for their specific totals for people detained by ICE, both legally and illegally in the country. They said they did not have those numbers on hand and that it would require an open records request. Action News Jax filed one.

“You can’t have immigration enforcement the way it is currently and still talk about affordable housing,” Brannock said.

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