Report: Immigrants a major force in Virginia home construction

Immigrants make up more than one-third of construction trades workers in the Richmond metropolitan area, according to a new report. (Adobe Stock)

By Public News Service

February 3, 2026

By Zamone Perez

Immigrants play an outsize role in homebuilding and remodeling across the Commonwealth, a role which will be affected by the Trump administration’s push to reach “net zero” migration into the United States, according to a new report.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University finds in metro areas with the most home construction and remodeling, immigrants are the main drivers of labor for the projects. In northern Virginia, two-thirds of construction trades workers are immigrants. The percentage is substantial but not quite as high in areas like Norfolk and Richmond.

Riordan Frost, senior research analyst at the center, said the most productive metro areas in building houses, condos and apartments often rely the most heavily on immigrant labor.”

This role is even more disproportionate in metropolitan areas with really high homebuilding activity or really high remodeling activities,” Frost reported. “Essentially, really high demand for those trades’ workforces.”For the first time in 50 years, the U.S. had net zero migration in 2025, a trend the White House has attributed to President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport what it describes as “criminal aliens” and end what it calls a “migrant invasion.”

The report found drywallers and plasterers lead the trades with the highest percentage of immigrant workers, at more than three-fifths. Half of all roofers, painters and floor installers are also immigrants. Frost argued efforts to so steeply curb immigration into the U.S. could put a strain on housing affordability, already a major issue across the Commonwealth and the nation.

“The labor shortage in general has increased the cost of housing,” Frost pointed out. “It’s really anything that kind of affects that ability to supply housing could drive up those costs.”

Affordability could extend to home remodels as well. The Washington, D.C., suburbs, which heavily rely on immigrant trades workers, spent the second-highest amount on home renovations of any metro area in the country.