‘No rebuilding without them’: Trump’s immigration crackdown will affect disaster recovery
‘No rebuilding without them’: Trump’s immigration crackdown will affect disaster recovery
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Saket Soni, founder of Resilience Force, says skilled restoration workers, with a range of legal statuses, are doing the arduous task of repairing US cities affected by disasters. Trump’s immigration crackdown could cause chaos for communities trying to rebuild after devastating wildfires and floods, as the vast majority of skilled disaster-restoration workers are immigrants, a leading expert has warned.
![[a man looking at camera]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/72ed0e43116812293c5ad56b541852382ec8e2ca/0_0_5229_6536/master/5229.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Republican and Democratic voters across the US are reeling from climate-fueled disasters, with thousands of homes and businesses destroyed and damaged by the ongoing fires in Los Angeles, as well as major hurricanes in Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia last year.
![[a knocked over sign]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/870cb10849d59f53e8551f9b83f68faa53edf278/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In each place, recovery depends on restoration or resilience workers, who travel from disaster to disaster cleaning up and rebuilding American communities while facing hazards such as unstable buildings, ash and other toxins, and water-borne diseases.
![[Firefighters battle with flames during wildfire]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5a60d90cfdb95eb1a919162a646b1ff053a7a057/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“Like farm workers in the fields, immigrants are indispensable to fire, flood and hurricane recovery in the US. There is absolutely no rebuilding without them,” said Saket Soni, director of Resilience Force, a labor organization with almost 4,000 members, who are primarily immigrant workers.
![[Debris from a business destroyed]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ad63b0fbc01314901629f0faeb5c86ed361dc1ba/0_0_6000_4453/master/6000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“Mass deportations would completely upend the ongoing recovery in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina from last year’s hurricanes. It would stall the rebuilding of LA after fires … and at this point, anyone anywhere is at risk of having their home impacted by a climate disaster. So everyone need these skilled workers.”.
