The Jobs Did Not Transfer: What the New Labor Data Says About Arizona's Build Out

The theory was simple. Remove immigrant workers and the jobs open up for American workers. We now have enough data to test it, and Fortune reported this week that the results are not what the policy promised.

Net international migration has fallen from a peak of 2.7 million in 2024 to an estimated 321,000 by mid 2026, according to the Census Bureau. Brookings believes we may go negative this year. That is the fastest contraction of labor supply in modern American history.

Here is what did not happen. Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi told Fortune that foreign born unemployment fell below native born unemployment in October 2025. The jobs did not transfer. They thinned out.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows foreign born workers concentrated in construction, trucking, natural resources, and health and personal care, earning 85.7 percent of what their native born counterparts earn. Zandi's read is blunt. Native born workers would take these jobs, but only at wages high enough to make the business itself uneconomic. He adds that many of these roles sit in remote parts of the country where housing and basic services barely exist.

The White House disputes the framing and points to real wage growth in construction, manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing. The New York Fed did find gains in construction and mining, driven partly by AI data center demand, though it also found wage growth slowing across most industries since 2022.

I grew up in Nogales. I served as Chief of Staff at Customs and Border Protection, where I managed a 13 billion dollar budget and more than 60,000 personnel. I understand the enforcement side of this equation as well as anyone. What I also understand is that Arizona is betting its economic future on semiconductors, data centers, and advanced manufacturing. TSMC and Intel are building in Phoenix right now. Somebody has to pour the concrete, frame the buildings, drive the loads, and staff the facilities.

Enforcement and a legal, credentialed workforce pipeline are not competing goals. They are the same project. Treating them as enemies has already cost us years, and Zandi expects the interim to be stagflationary: higher prices without a corresponding lift in output.

This is what unlocking the full potential of North American leadership actually requires. Not a choice between security and growth, but a workforce strategy built to survive policy volatility in both capitals.

Read the full Fortune report by Eleanor Pringle here.

CALL TO ACTION

At Intermestic Partners we help companies build cross border workforce and compliance strategy that holds up through policy swings in Washington and Mexico City. If your 2027 labor plan still assumes the workforce you had in 2024, it is time to revisit the assumptions. Reach out to Intermestic Partners to start that conversation.