MCALLEN, Texas - About an hour after the Rio Grande Guardian met with Mario M. Guerrero, CEO of South Texas Builders Association, a national TV news crew with CBS was slated to meet him.
Guerrero said the national network showed interest in the group after watching STBA’s livestream on Facebook two days before. The livestream featured STBA’s Immigration Enforcement & Construction Industry Impact Symposium, held at McAllen Convention Center.
Watching the livestream, CBS reporters would have heard about the huge concerns South Texas builders have with the current ICE raids at construction sites. So many workers are being rounded up that projects are blowing up, leaving some firms close to bankruptcy.
“We have a national CBS news crew that is actually on their way right now. They're about 30 minutes out from McAllen. They're going to be coming in, and they're going to be doing a broadcast on STBA, the South Texas Builders Association, and they're supposed to air it out by the end of the week on a national level,” Guerrero told the Guardian.
“They're going to be speaking to different people in the organization that were at that symposium yesterday. They told me personally that they were actually listening throughout the whole meeting, which is very humbling, because we're not advocating for destruction, we're not advocating for hate, we're advocating for peace, and we're advocating for love, and we're advocating for our community. If anybody says anything different, they obviously don't understand the words I'm saying.”
Guerrero acknowledged he has been getting hate mail from across the country, for challenging the actions of the Trump administration when it comes to immigration enforcement.
“We keep advocating for peace and love in our community. And unfortunately, the reality is that everything that's happening is already affecting our economy. And it’s going to have a massive effect on our local economy if we're not able to bring some sort of peace to the construction industry.”
Another builder that spoke at the symposium was Efrain Gomez, Jr., president of Gomez 3 Construction. Indeed, Gomez served as moderator of the discussion.
“Today's conversation is not about placing blame, and it's not about weakening the law. It's about acknowledging a reality that has existed for decades and working towards solutions that are legal, ethical and humane,” Gomez said.
“Across our region, we are seeing a growing disconnect between immigration enforcement and workforce reality. We're not only talking about individuals without documentation, we're also talking about people who have followed the process, who hold valid work authorization or who are actively trying to renew or correct their status, yet are still facing denial, revocation and sudden enforcement actions.”
Gomez continued: “When people are following the rules they were instructed to follow and are still being penalized, the issue is no longer individual compliance. The issue is systemic.”
Gomez added: “Behind every enforcement action is a human being, often a parent, a provider and a longterm member of this community. Sudden detentions don't just remove a worker from a job, they destabilize families, disrupt local economies and erode trust in the system meant to protect us.”
Seby Haddad is chief lending officer at Lone Star National Bank. In his remarks at the symposium, Haddad acknowledged that community banks in the Rio Grande Valley were feeling the effects of the construction industry’s contraction.
“Definitely, in the banking sector, we see the demand diminishing. We see the strain from not only the construction industry, but we see it across the board in various sectors and finance. And so it definitely affects the market as a whole. It affects the local economy, significantly. It affects the local workforce,” Haddad said. “And all of that can put a lot of strain on, really, community banks.”
Paul Rodriguez, president and CEO of Valley Land Title Company, also spoke at the symposium.
“To support Mr. Haddad’s comments about activity on the construction side, I can tell you that we have seen, especially on the construction side, construction loans… and there are other banks, not just Lone Star that are very involved in the construction business… and they are seeing it. We've been seeing it in our numbers since the summer and certainly towards the end of the year, October, November, December, and especially towards the end of the year, those numbers have significantly dropped, I would say, by 30 to 40 percent of construction activity,” Rodriguez said.
Ronnie Cavazos is president of the South Texas Builders Association.
“We as a community are going through some really hard times. Numbers are down everywhere, not just in the construction industry, but in retail, hospitality, farming, business, medical, all over, the numbers are down,” Cavazos said, in his remarks at the symposium.
“We're not a big community. Millions of dollars have been pulled out of this economy. If you can just understand how that impacts all of us, it’s a big deal. Our workforce? Over 9,000 people have been deported just out of our area, disproportionate numbers compared to the rest of the United States. Percentage-wise, we are a very small portion of the US, and yet the deportations are astronomical in our community. That affects us greatly, and we've got to do something about it.”
