Inside Salt Lake City's foreign-born noncitizen workforce
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The construction, food service/recreation and manufacturing industries have the greatest shares of foreign-born noncitizen workers in the Salt Lake area, per census data.
Why it matters: Ramped-up immigration enforcement could disrupt the construction of critically needed housing in Utah's capital and the city's growing food scene.
By the numbers: Foreign-born noncitizens, including legal residents and those with work visas, account for 21.3% of Salt Lake City construction workers; 13.3% of those in food service and recreation; and 12.9% of those in manufacturing, based on a 2019–2023 average from U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
- Overall, almost 9% of workers in the Salt Lake metro are foreign-born noncitizens.
Reality check: President Trump earlier this summer acknowledged that his massive immigration crackdown is "taking very good, long time workers away from" the farming and hotel industries, and he promised changes.
- Yet, there's still no major policy shift from the White House, which must balance economic realities with MAGA demands to deport as many people as possible.
The big picture: Foreign-born noncitizens make up 8.3% of the country's civilian workforce ages 16 and older, according to the census.
- Around 40% of crop farmworkers in the U.S. lack work authorization, per USDA estimates.
The latest: Farmers "are getting frustrated with the delays" on a big White House plan for undocumented workers, Politico recently reported, while some farm workers say they're being "hunted like animals" in immigration raids, per The Guardian.
- The Trump administration has taken small steps, such as the Labor Department's new "Office of Immigration Policy," meant to streamline some temporary worker visas.
Yes, but: Some in Trump's MAGA base view any form of capitulation on immigration as a form of amnesty — and a broken promise to conduct mass deportations.
- "MAGA is always on amnesty watch. It will not move forward no matter what name anyone tries to call it. They all have to go home," right-wing podcaster Jack Posobiec told Axios' Tal Axelrod.
What they're saying: "This is not amnesty. It's not amnesty lite," a senior Trump administration official told Axios' Marc Caputo of the visa effort.
- "No one who is illegally here is being given a pathway to citizenship or residency."
The bottom line: Both undocumented workers and the industries relying on them are still largely in limbo.