Business owners in a South Texas county that flipped for Trump are now warning Republicans they’ll bail on the party if MAGA immigration crackdowns wreck the local economy.
In the Rio Grande Valley, a historically Democratic area that swung for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, several business owners said the president’s immigration policies are now taking a toll on the region.
While many along this swath of the Southern border support targeted immigration and deportation operations, Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda has directly impacted the region’s economy.
Several regional workers in the construction industry told NBC News they are worried about immigration raids at construction sites and about workers being too afraid to come to work as a result.
“This will put us out of business if it continues,” Ronnie Cavazos, president of the South Texas Builders Association and the owner of The Structure Team construction company, told the outlet.
One real estate agent in McAllen told NBC that an investor who had been set to buy about 100 lots was now on the fence as he did not know if “by the time they start construction, they would not be able to complete the project.”
Xavier Vazquez, who owns a homebuilding company, said that ICE arrested nearly all of his stucco workers, and he’s had trouble replacing them. As he tries to find replacements for them, he said he finds “this one’s been taken or this one’s been taken.”
The South Texas Builders Association traveled to Washington, D.C., to demand that the president and his administration stop detaining immigrant workers who have not committed serious crimes.
The group’s executive director, Mario Guerrero, a Trump voter, also contended the president’s immigration agenda could end some livelihoods in the region.
“I can guarantee you, the Valley will never be red again,” Guerrero said. “At least not anytime soon.”
While Guerrero noted he did not regret voting for Trump, he blamed former President Joe Biden for the increase in undocumented immigrants in Texas, and called former President Barack Obama the “deportation king.”
“Why didn’t he ever terrorize people?” Guerrero told NBC. “Because he was running actual investigations on who they were going for, and he did it right.”
When asked for comment by the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson repeated the comment given to NBC News and said, “Over one in ten young adults in America are neither employed, in higher education, nor pursuing some sort of vocational training.”
“There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration’s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws. President Trump will continue growing our economy, creating opportunity for American workers, and ensuring all sectors have the legal workforce they need to be successful,” Jackson’s statement continued.
The Rio Grande Valley is additionally heavily Latino, a demographic that also voted for Trump and Republicans in higher numbers than it had in past elections. The area includes Starr County, which flipped red for the first time in 132 years, with Trump winning with 57.7% of the vote there. The region’s most populous county, Hidalgo, voted for Trump by a two-point margin.
Republicans are also largely bleeding Latino support ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, in which Democrats are expected to gain control of the House and potentially the Senate.
Unlike larger cities in the U.S., the Rio Grande Valley has mostly avoided clashes between federal immigration agents, despite its high immigrant population.
About 23% of the construction force in Texas are undocumented immigrants, the American Immigration Council estimates.
“It’s pretty understood in the Valley. It is a reality of how it works,” Vazquez said. “Some of these people start saying, ‘Oh, it’s because we’re trying to get away with cheap labor.’ Naw. It’s what we have available.”
The region’s discontent with the administration’s immigration policies comes as Trump is already facing widespread disapproval of his immigration agenda.
A poll from Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos found that 58 percent of voters believe Trump is going too far in his deportation agenda.
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