Some TX business leaders are apprehensive about Trump’s pledged deportations — here's why

"Some Texas business leaders are apprehensive about Trump’s pledged deportations" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. A number of Texas business leaders interviewed by the Tribune describe a sort of wait-and-see apprehension about Trump’s pledged mass deportations. A construction worker along Highway 1604 in San Antonio on Dec. 19, 2024. Credit: Scott Stephen Ball for The Texas Tribune “We really find ourselves in the situation where anything that kind of disrupts the process of housing supply would be detrimental to the housing affordability crisis,” said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. That’s the key because the business community, more than anybody, is responsible for the labor.” In the oil-rich Permian Basin, mass deportations could reduce populations in cities and in turn result in closed businesses and the disappearance of sales tax dollars, said Virginia Bellew, executive director of the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission.