Congressman Vicente Gonzalez Demands HUD Secretary Address Housing and Labor Shortages in South Texas
The Administration’s mass deportation policies could remove an estimated 1.5 million construction workers exacerbating the housing affordability crisis
Contact: Alexis Torres
Washington, D.C.—As Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) continues to hear from builders, realtors and insurance lenders in the Rio Grande Valley about the growing housing and labor shortages, today he demanded U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner work with the President to address harmful policies impacting South Texas’s migrant workforce. During a House Committee on Financial Services hearing, the Congressman specifically highlighted how undocumented migrants account for 40% of the construction workforce in Texas, and the removal of these workers would effectively terminate any real chance of solving the housing affordability crisis.
The United States is heavily reliant on an undocumented workforce. However, federal immigration agents – at the Administration’s direction – have increasingly targeted work sites for immigration sweeps. As a result, businesses in the Rio Grande Valley, particularly in key industries like construction, have suffered economically, and at times have even stalled affordable housing and other development projects.
Congressman Gonzalez during a Jan. 21, 2026, Financial Services Committee hearing “Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Administration.”
Watch his remarks here.
Notable excerpts of Congressman Gonzalez’s questioning of Secretary Turner can be found below:
“I'd like to turn to my question, Mr. Secretary, to a more serious issue that we have at hand, and that's housing affordability in this country. And we have to be honest about that, because while we talk about immigrants, 30% of construction workers in this country are immigrants. And in Texas, about 40% of construction workers are immigrants. And in your city, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Houston, San Antonio, that number goes up to about 60%, depending on where you are.
“Just recently, I met with the South Texas Builders Association and had a very candid conversation about the labor shortage that we're suffering in Texas and across the country. Just last year, it was shown that we would have had 400,000 homes less built in this country if it had not been for immigrant labor.
“Right now, I have builders, I have realtors, I have lenders, I have title companies coming to me. These are folks who supported President Trump in his last election, who came to me and said what nobody else would say out loud – we need immigrants to build America – and we cannot do it without immigrant labor. We have a labor shortage in this country.”
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“We really need to have a serious conversation on addressing the labor shortage for this country. These are Donald Trump supporters. These people voted for Trump. They thought he was going to help the country, and he's actually hurt them.
“Framing prices in my district have doubled this year alone because of the labor shortage. That's just the framing of it. You can keep on going—carpentry, bricklaying, roofing. Those are all labor, immigrant labor, forces that are handling most of that for the country, but especially in states—and the largest and most fastest growing states—like Texas, Florida, New York, California and many other places in this country.”
To watch the full video, click here.