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Early last year, President-elect Donald Trump promised to give the U.S. Navy the authority to build more ships when he returns to the Oval Office. “It’s very important because it’s a job, a great job,” he said.
But companies that build ships for the government already have trouble finding enough workers to fill those jobs. And things could become even more difficult if President Trump follows through on another promise he made: cracking down on immigration.
The president-elect told supporters he would impose new limits on the number of immigrants allowed into the country and launch the largest mass deportation campaign in history. Meanwhile, the shipbuilding industry, which he supports and has provided significant financial support to Republican causes, is struggling to overcome a severe labor shortage. Immigration has played an important role in filling that gap.
A Navy report last year found that several major shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, largely due to labor shortages. The shortage is so severe that warship production has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century.
Shipyards and the government are spending millions of dollars to train and hire American workers, and are proposing even more spending as part of a bipartisan bill just introduced in the Senate. Last year, the Navy awarded about $1 billion in at-will contracts to Texas nonprofits to modernize the industry with more advanced technology in a way that makes it more attractive to workers. The nonprofit has already produced flashy television ads about submarine jobs. One of its goals is to help the submarine industry hire 140,000 new workers over the next 10 years. One of its ads calls, “We build giant companies.” “It takes one to build one.”
Still, experts say these strong efforts have so far resulted in far from enough labor to meet current needs, much less enough to accommodate increased production. There is. “We’re trying to get blood out of turnips,” said Shelby Oakley, an analyst with the Government Accountability Office. “We just don’t have enough domestic labor.”
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On the other hand, the industry relies on immigrants for a variety of shipyard jobs, including many similar to those found on construction sites, such as cleaners, welders, painters and plumbers. And executives worry that future immigration crackdowns and restrictions on legal immigration, including limits on asylum and Temporary Protected Status programs, could cause disruption and further harm production capacity.
Ron Will, president and chief operating officer of All American Marine Corp. in Washington state, said the company is “looking for” workers. And Peter Duclos, president of Glading Hearn Shipyards in Somerset, Massachusetts, said the current immigration system is “so broken” that it’s hard to retain valuable workers and force even more workers. He said he was already having trouble finding them.
There is no publicly available data showing the extent to which the shipbuilding industry relies on immigrant labor, particularly illegal immigrant labor. Both Mr. Willey and Mr. Duclos say they do not employ illegal aliens, and industry experts say undocumented immigrants are unlikely to work on projects that require security clearances. But a ProPublica report last year found that some shipyards with government contracts employ such workers. The report focused on a major Louisiana shipyard run by a company called Thomas Sea, where undocumented immigrants were often employed through third-party subcontractors.
The article reported on a young Guatemalan illegal immigrant who was helping build an $89 million U.S. government ship to track hurricanes. When he died after working for Thomas Sea for two years, neither the company nor the subcontractor paid death benefits to his partner and young son.
ProPublica also reported that Thomassy executives, who declined to comment, provided tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican candidates. But if Trump’s last presidential inauguration is any guide, the shipbuilding industry will not be exempt from future crackdowns. One of the last workplace raids under Trump’s first administration took place at an even larger shipyard in Louisiana called Bollinger.
In July 2020, federal immigration agents arrested 19 “illegal aliens” at Bollinger’s Lockport shipyard, according to a Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate article. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to provide information about the attack. According to Bollinger’s website, the shipyard produces patrol boats for the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy. According to reports, five of the arrested workers were sent to ICE detention centers and 14 were released pending deportation proceedings.
Bollinger denied any wrongdoing following the raid. Four years later, there is no evidence in publicly available federal court records that Bollinger executives have been charged with anything related to it. Meanwhile, federal election records show that company executives donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican lawmakers last year, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana. The company did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.
President Joe Biden’s administration has said it will end workplace raids like the one at Bollinger and instead focus on “unscrupulous employers.” Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions or provide data on how many employers have since been indicted. But Tom Homan, Trump’s nominee for border czar, has indicated that the next administration will return to conducting raids. Asked how the second Trump administration would increase shipbuilding while restricting immigration, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team simply emphasized the president-elect’s promise to deport people, saying, He said he would focus on cracking down on smugglers and human traffickers.
Immigrant anger against new arrivals helped boost Trump’s popularity among Latino voters
Days after Trump won the election, a group of illegal shipyard welders emerged from a Hispanic grocery store near the port in Houma, Louisiana, when asked what they thought was in store for them. It presented a bleak outlook. One man, who declined to give his name, let out a nervous laugh and blurted out, “Well, we could be deported.” A welder from the Mexican state of Coahuila who has been working in the United States for about two years also declined to give his name, but said he was worried about losing the life he had managed to build in this country.
“If they get you, they take you and you have to leave everything behind,” he said.
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Do you have information about illegal immigrants in the workforce? Contact [email protected] Or call Signal 661-549-0572.
