Mounting ICE raids leave homebuilding’s frontlines frozen in fear

[Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series exploring disruptions, potential solutions and homebuilding’s business impacts of recent immigration enforcement initiatives. Part 2 will focus on the push for policy solutions and domestic efforts to build skilled construction labor capacity. Part 3 will report on how these disruptions compound homebuilding business headwinds, putting businesses at risk.]U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showed up at a construction site in Martinsburg, WV, earlier this week, leaving workers shaken and adding to scores of incidents in an intensifying months-long ordeal that has left homebuilders in dozens of U.S. local markets short on labor and pushed to their construction, finance, operations and business planning limits.A homebuilding executive with operations in the region, who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity, recounted what unfolded. According to the executive, ICE agents “swarmed the site with drones and battering rams” and detained about 30 construction workers.“The guys on the ground, the field guys, said, ‘This is the most unsettling thing I’ve experienced.’ You know, [ICE] was demanding that, if they don’t unlo...