I’m Gonna Punch You in Your F--king Face’: Scott Bessent Threatens an Administration Rival by Rachael Bade

 The Treasury secretary's quiet tensions with housing finance chief Bill Pulte exploded at a private dinner last week.

 

A private dinner attended by dozens of administration officials and close advisers to President Donald Trump was temporarily marred by a dramatic clash between two of Trump’s top economic officials, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at one point threatening to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte “in the fucking face.”

The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one of celebration: It was both the much-anticipated inaugural dinner at Executive Branch, the ultra-exclusive Georgetown club created by and for Trump world’s uberrich, and a birthday party for MAGA-friendly podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya.

 

A long table for the 30-some guests was set with top-of-the-line crystal and china. The guest list included Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Medicare and Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz, plus venture capitalist David Sacks, Palihapitiya’s partner on the “All In” podcast.

But amid the cocktail-hour din, Bessent lashed out at Pulte in an expletive-laden diatribe. The Treasury secretary had heard from several people that the Federal Housing Finance Agency director had been badmouthing him to Trump, a person close to him said. He wasn’t about to engage in chit-chat as if nothing was amiss.

“Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you,” Bessent told Pulte. “I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face.”

The scene was described to me by one eyewitness and four other people familiar with what happened. The only fact they disagreed on was whether it was Bessent or Pulte who initiated the conversation. They and others who described the conflict were granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

Pulte appeared stunned, and the tense encounter prompted club co-owner and financier Omeed Malik to intervene, according to the three people. But Bessent wasn’t having it — he sought to get him kicked out, the eyewitness said.

 

“It’s either me or him,” Bessent said to Malik. “You tell me who’s getting the fuck out of here.”

“Or,” he added, “we could go outside.”

“To do what?” asked Pulte. “To talk?”

“No,” Bessent replied. “I’m going to fucking beat your ass.”

Seeking to deescalate the situation, Malik separated the men, walking Bessent to another part of the club to calm down. During the seated dinner, Bessent and Pulte were placed on opposite ends of the table, and the party went off without further episode.

Bessent, Pulte, Malik and the White House declined to comment.

The confrontation — which one Trump insider called “bonkers” and another called “unhinged” — underscores the surprising tensions between top Trump officials tasked with working on the nation’s most sensitive economic matters.

Trump announced in May that Bessent, Lutnick and Pulte would collaborate on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal housing finance organs Pulte oversees. In recent weeks, Pulte has taken the lead on an initiative that could put as much as 15 percent of Fannie and Freddie on the public markets.

 

ut behind the scenes, the two men have clashed in something of a turf war over the mortgage giants as well as other economic matters, four Trump insiders told me. Bessent believes, some of the people familiar with their conflict say, that Pulte has inserted himself into matters the secretary views as his jurisdiction. Pulte, they add, has bristled at the threat of being bigfooted.

Complicating the entire dynamic, according to Trump administration allies closely following the drama, is Pulte’s close ties to Lutnick. The Commerce secretary and Bessent have had a rocky relationship since the transition, when the two men competed for the Treasury position. That has injected significant distrust into anything the trio work on together.

It was why Bessent — who feels he doesn’t have time for drama and backbiting given his massive portfolio, according to the person close to him — hit the roof when he saw Pulte Wednesday.

Both men enjoy close relationships with Trump and are known within the president’s orbit to openly jockey for influence and power — albeit in different ways.

Bessent, who comes across publicly as soft-spoken, has won Trump’s trust as a “soothing” presence for jittery markets amid the president’s unpredictable plays on tariffs and other economic issues. A cautious operator who’s been called a “moderating influence” on the administration, the billionaire former hedge fund manager has overcome his past association with Democratic megadonor George Soros and is now considered one of Trump’s closest allies.

 

Meanwhile, Pulte — a brash 37-year-old with 3 million X followers — has taken a more pugnacious tack in his lower-profile job. The scion of a family that made a fortune building homes, he quickly fired more than 100 Fannie and Freddie staffers as he took direct control of the key housing finance entities — often rolling out new initiatives on X.

In recent weeks his stock in the White House and in the MAGA universe more broadly has risen as he has used his post to launch mortgage-related investigations into several of the president’s critics. His efforts to target Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook — alleging she sought mortgages for multiple “primary” residences — have redoubled pressure on the Fed as Trump presses for lower interest rates.

Trump moved to fire Cook, a Joe Biden appointee, last month. She has called the allegations unsubstantiated and is suing to challenge her ouster. The case is pending.

Relatedly, Bessent and Pulte have been on opposite sides of the debate about whether Trump should fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Bessent, as my colleagues Megan Messerly and Victoria Guida scooped earlier this year, had privately cautioned that such a decapitation would destabilize financial markets.

Pulte, on the other hand, has repeatedly called on Powell to resign and has taken the position that Trump has the power to fire the chair for cause based on his alleged mismanagement of costly Fed headquarters renovations. Pulte even gave Trump a draft letter firing Powell, the Washington Post reported in July.

 

Wednesday’s dustup also wasn’t the first time Bessent has gotten into an altercation with a fellow Trump official. In April, he confronted Elon Musk just outside the Oval Office, accusing the tech mogul — then running his Department of Government Efficiency initiative — in a profanity-laden tirade of going behind his back to secure his chosen candidate, Gary Shapley, as acting IRS commissioner.

Bessent was pushing for another man, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender, to get the job — and eventually got his way. Faulkender left the department late last month after just five months on the job.

The U.S. is a major importer of Indian products made from Russian oil By Omkar Khandekar , Brent Jones

 MUMBAI, India — Tariffs on many Indian-origin goods entering the United States have now been doubled to 50%. While India has long been seen by the U.S. as a bulwark against China, Indian goods now face some of the highest import taxes of products made anywhere in the world.

 The Trump administration asserts that the additional tariff is punishment for India's alleged funding and profiting off the Ukraine war by becoming a leading buyer of Russian crude oil at a discount and selling oil products the world over

 In a recent interview on Bloomberg Television, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro doubled down on the accusation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was financing the Kremlin's "war machine," even calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict "Modi's war."

But while a majority of the oil that India imports is for its own use, Indian refineries also export oil products. An NPR analysis found that the U.S. is one of their biggest customers.

 

The U.S. bought oil products worth an estimated $1.4 billion from India between January and July of this year, says the Finnish think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

According to shipping data sourced by CREA, more than 90% of the Indian oil products imported by the U.S. came from the Reliance Industries refinery, owned by Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The data also shows that the Reliance refinery gets nearly half its crude oil from Russia.

That means the U.S. is buying fuel made directly or indirectly from Russian oil, according to Isaac Levi, a researcher at CREA.

 The U.S. is among India's top customers for refined oil

Between Jan. 1 and July 31, 2025, India exported 35.5 million metric tons of refined oil products. About 10% has gone to the United Arab Emirates, and about 6% to the United States.

How Trump's latest crypto launch enriches his family by Maria Aspan

 

Even by Donald Trump's well-established track record of making money off the presidency, he's had a banner week.

On Monday, President Trump's family earned some $5 billion — at least on paper — as their latest cryptocurrency venture launched. Now a "token" from World Liberty Financial, the crypto business co-founded last year by Trump and his sons, is trading publicly.

This launch highlights the extraordinary degree to which Trump and his family are using the Oval Office to personally profit, especially through his close ties to the crypto industry. The president reported income of more than $630 million last year, including $57 million from cryptocurrency sales, before launching a "meme coin" earlier this year. (He has also licensed his name to sell sneakers, watches, guitars, and Bibles.)

 

Now anyone can buy or sell this "$WLFI" token — giving those wishing to curry favor with the president another avenue to directly contribute to his personal finances.

"You used to have to join Mar-a-Lago[, Trump's resort and private club]. This is much more fun. You don't even have to get out of bed in the morning," says Ross Delston, a lawyer and former banking regulator at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

"You can invest in this [cryptocurrency], and now he's your friend," he adds. "And that could be anybody — somebody who's sketchy, or who's been convicted of something, or acting on behalf of a [foreign] state actor. "

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren was even more blunt. "It's corruption, plain and simple," she wrote on X on Tuesday, linking to a Wall Street Journal story about the Trump family's $5 billion on-paper windfall.

The White House has repeatedly dismissed such criticisms over Trump's efforts to personally profit from the crypto industry.

"Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NPR in an emailed statement this week.

From calling crypto a "scam" to appointing pro-crypto financial cops

World Liberty's public launch didn't exactly set the crypto world on fire. Its tokens were priced at about 22 cents each by Wednesday afternoon, down from their high of 32 cents shortly after their debut.

 

And so far, the Trumps have limited ability to actually cash in their holdings: World Liberty Financial says that its "team," including the Trumps, were barred from selling their own tokens when they started trading publicly.

But even without an immediate payday, the token's debut creates more pathways for the Trump family to profit from the crypto industry that helped put him back in office.

Just a few years ago, Trump called crypto a scam. But now he's embraced it. Last year he courted deep-pocketed crypto investors, by vowing to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. And once he won re-election, Trump started appointing crypto-friendly officials to his administration — including at the financial regulatory agencies that once heavily policed the crypto industry.

Under President Biden, the Securities and Exchange Commission in particular cracked down heavily on crypto companies, suing many for fraud and money laundering. That gave Trump an opportunity to court the vote of frustrated crypto investors, who poured money into the 2024 federal elections. Last year, Trump appointed Paul Atkins, a crypto supporter, to head the SEC.

At the same time, the crypto ventures that Trump and his family have started have put them in a position to profit from the more relaxed rules coming out of his administration.

Now there are few guardrails for how Trump is co-mingling his personal and presidential crypto interests. As Delston says: "What exists now is virtually nothing."

 

Florida moves to scrap state school vaccine requirements by Gary Fineout

 During the height of Covid-19, the state championed a “medical freedom” agenda that included scrapping mask mandates and prohibiting employers from requiring Covid-19 vaccines for employment. 

 TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state, which vocally resisted mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic, now may scrap all vaccine and immunization requirements — most notably including those for students.

State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, long a vaccine skeptic, announced that Florida would make the push during an event with the governor designed to show the state aligning itself with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement championed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

 “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said about Florida’s vaccine requirements. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.”

Florida has a mix of immunization requirements for those entering schools and colleges, including shots for measles, polio and chicken pox. The state does allow for exemptions, and the most recent data shows nearly 89 percent of students entering kindergarten are immunized.

During the height of Covid-19, DeSantis championed what he called a “medical freedom” agenda that included scrapping mask mandates and prohibiting employers from requiring Covid-19 vaccines for employment. He also pushed a law that banned “vaccine passports” by businesses — such as cruise lines — that wanted to require proof of vaccination.

DeSantis said Wednesday that he backed the push by Ladapo — which will require action by the state Department of Health and concurrence from the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. He also touted Ladapo again as a possible head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC director was just ousted amid a conflict that included disagreements over vaccine requirements.

 Neither state Senate President Ben Albritton nor House Speaker Daniel Perez immediately responded to a request for comment.

The governor also said he was creating a new “MAHA” commission, led by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and first lady Casey DeSantis, that would look at everything from “restoring trust in the medical profession” to regulatory burdens and would include nutrition and health experts.

Some Democrats responded quickly to the announcement from the DeSantis administration. David Jolly, who is running to succeed DeSantis, said he would fire Ladapo if elected and urged Republican candidates Byron Donalds and Paul Renner to pledge to do the same.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) called the idea a “public health disaster in the making.”

“To toss aside decades of proven science for political gain is dangerous, short-sighted and will cost lives,” Eskamani said in a statement. “Florida families deserve leaders who put public health and safety first, not ideology.”

 

 

'Founders Museum' from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction by Kristian Monroe

 

A new history exhibit commissioned by the Trump administration has some historians perplexed, as the administration's pushback on arts and history raises questions about omitting marginalized voices in the nation's history.

Eighty-two paintings — including portraits of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as key events from America's founding — make up The Founders Museum.

The exhibit, just steps from the White House inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, marks a partnership between the administration's White House Task Force 250 and conservative nonprofit PragerU to celebrate the lead-up to America's semiquincentennial next year.

Besides paintings of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Betsy Ross, the museum also features over 40 AI-generated short videos of these historical figures coming to life to share their stories — all available online and produced by PragerU.

 In a statement to NPR, the White House said the exhibit uses the power of AI so that "these people, places and events come to life, making history engaging to Americans across the country."

 

"While the project to bring the founders and the signers of the Declaration of Independence into focus is one that many historians admire and would support," William G. Thomas, vice president of the research division at the American Historical Association, says, "I think there's some concerns about how that's done in this case."

This includes concerns about how words and stories of real-life historical figures could be reshaped by their AI counterparts.

PragerU CEO Marissa Streit tells NPR that the videos were a joint effort between the White House team of experts, PragerU scholars and widely referenced historical sources.

Blurring the lines between reality and fiction

The danger of projects like The Founders Museum, according to Brendan Gillis, director of teaching and learning for the American Historical Association, is that it focuses narrowly on a small set of experiences, making it seem like this is all the American Revolutionary history that we need to know. But, he says, "there's many, many more people who shaped the American Revolution and kept this story going."

 

One concern is how AI-generated videos can sometimes blur the line between reality and fiction. In one video, an artificially generated John Adams says, "Facts do not care about your feelings" — a phrase often used by conservative commentator and PragerU presenter Ben Shapiro.

"I have real concerns about the extent to which they weave together words that are preserved in primary sources from historical figures with other sort of commentary," Gillis explains. "And it's not always clear [when] the historical figures actually said the words that are coming out of their mouth, or wrote them down, and when this is the work of whoever scripted them."

 

"Viewers should understand that the portrayals are careful interpretations — grounded in letters, speeches, and original writings from the period," Streit said in response to concerns about the videos' sourcing.

Other videos from the exhibit appear to gloss over key aspects of figures' lives, leading to what can feel like broad strokes of history. Karin Wulf, a history professor at Brown University, points to Revolutionary writer and thinker Mercy Otis Warren as an example.

 "In the video, it acknowledges that she's a writer, and that writing wasn't something that women were encouraged to do, certainly in public," Wulf says. "But it then has her say these kind of pablum pieces about patriotism and liberty that are so much less stringent and so much less potent than what she actually said at the time."

Warren was infamously critical of the founders, writing in her observations of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, "America has, in many instances, resembled the conduct of a restless, vigorous, luxurious youth, prematurely emancipated from the authority of a parent, but without the experience necessary to direct him to act with dignity or discretion."

"Give us five minutes, and we'll give you a semester"

PragerU was founded by longtime conservative radio host Dennis Prager and his then-producer Allen Estrin in 2009 to promote conservative values through courses taught in five-minute videos.

 

We used to say in the early days, 'Give us five minutes, and we'll give you a semester,'" Estrin told The New York Times in 2020.

PragerU openly admits it is not an accredited university. The nonprofit media organization produces thousands of "edutainment" videos on topics from history to science, garnering millions of views.

But PragerU has faced criticism for misleading and inaccurate content, most recently for an episode of its PragerU Kids series, Leo & Layla's History Adventures, in which Christopher Columbus tells two time-traveling siblings, "Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem."

 

Critics slammed the episode and others, accusing it of downplaying the historical significance of slavery and the experiences of enslaved peoples.

Streit says critics have misrepresented the videos and called the criticism "disingenuous."

Defending the Columbus episode, Streit explains the reason they did not have him condemn slavery is because "that would be historically inaccurate."

Streit says, "We don't excuse it; in fact, we make clear that slavery is evil, explaining this in age-appropriate ways. At the same time, we teach that historical figures must be understood with the context and standards of their own era."

American greatness and the voices of the marginalized 

PragerU plans to take The Founders Museum on the road with "mobile museum trucks" to cities across the country to give the public a chance to experience the exhibit in person ahead of America's 250th birthday.

 

Streit, in an interview on PragerU's website, says the company will be taking the opportunity during the semiquincentennial to "reignite patriotism and give some perspective that yes, America has its blemishes. Of course it does. But America is a great country. It has been a leader in greatness for so many years, and we want to teach that."

The White House says it has sent letters to state governors and ambassadors encouraging them to put The Founders Museum in their state capitols, schools and embassies.

 

The Founders Museum unveiling coincides with President Trump's criticisms of the Smithsonian Institution, especially exhibits on slavery, immigration and LGBTQ+ history.

"The history that best serves us as a country, and in our ambition for a full democracy and full freedom and liberty is for all, is the fullest history of all people. And if you look at the history of all the people, 40% of Virginians were enslaved," Wulf says.

 Correction Sept. 3, 2025

After this story published, professor Karin Wulf clarified that when she said “if you look at the history of all the people, 40% were enslaved,” she should have said “40% of Virginians were enslaved.”

 

Ice obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted appsby Stephanie Kirchgaessner

 Trump administration contract with Paragon Solutions gives immigration agency access to one of the most powerful stealth cyberweapons

 

US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.

The Department of Homeland Security first entered into a contract with Paragon, now owned by a US firm, in late 2024, under the Biden administration. But the $2m contract was put on hold pending a compliance review to make sure it adhered to an executive order that restricts the US government’s use of spyware, Wired reported at the time.

That pause has now been lifted, according to public procurement documents, which list US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as the contracting agency.

 

US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.

The Department of Homeland Security first entered into a contract with Paragon, now owned by a US firm, in late 2024, under the Biden administration. But the $2m contract was put on hold pending a compliance review to make sure it adhered to an executive order that restricts the US government’s use of spyware, Wired reported at the time.

That pause has now been lifted, according to public procurement documents, which list US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as the contracting agency.

 It means that one of the most powerful stealth cyberweapons ever created – which was produced outside the US – is now in the hands of an agency that has repeatedly been accused by civil and human rights groups of violating people’s due process rights.

The story was first reported by the journalist Jack Poulson on his All-Source Intelligence Substack newsletter.

Neither Paragon nor Ice immediately responded to a request for comment.

When it is successfully deployed against a target, the hacking software – called Graphite – can hack into any phone. By essentially taking control of the mobile phone, the user – in this case, Ice – can not only track an individual’s whereabouts, read their messages, look at their photographs, but it can also open and read information held on encrypted applications, like WhatsApp or Signal. Spyware like Graphite can also be used as a listening device, through the manipulation of the phone’s recorder.

An executive order signed by the Biden administration sought to establish some guardrails around the US government’s use of spyware. It said that the US “shall not make operational use of commercial spyware that poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person”. The Biden administration also took the extraordinary step of placing one of Paragon’s rival spyware makers, NSO Group, on a commerce department blacklist, saying the company had knowingly supplied foreign governments to “maliciously target” the phones of dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.

Paragon has sought to differentiate itself from NSO Group. It has said that, unlike NSO – which previously sold its spyware to Saudi Arabia and other regimes – that it only does business with democracies. It has also said it has a no tolerance policy and will cut off government clients who use the spyware to target members of civil society, such as journalists. Paragon refuses to disclose who its clients are and has said it does not have insight into how its clients use the technology against targets.

Spyware makers like Paragon and NSO have said their products are intended to be used to prevent crime and terrorist attacks. But both companies’ software has been used in the past to target innocent people, including individuals who have been perceived to be government enemies.

John Scott-Railton, a senior research at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, who is one of the world’s leading experts on cases in which spyware like Graphite has been abused by governments, said in a statement that such tools “were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built on liberty and protection of individual rights”.

 

1.2 million immigrants are gone from the US labor force under Trump, preliminary data shows By COREY WILLIAMS

 

It’s tomato season and Lidia is harvesting on farms in California’s Central Valley.

She is also anxious. Attention from U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement could upend her life more than 23 years after she illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenager.

“The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers,” said Lidia, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only her first name be used because of her fears of deportation. “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”

 As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Donald Trump’s stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation’s labor force.

 More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.

Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.

 The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.

 

“It’s unclear how much of the decline we’ve seen since January is due to voluntary departures to pursue other opportunities or avoid deportation, removals, underreporting or other technical issues,” Kramer said. “However, we don’t believe that the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn’t real.”

Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally. He has said he is focusing deportation efforts on “dangerous criminals,” but most people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions. At the same time, the number of illegal border crossings has plunged under his policies.

 Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said immigrants normally contribute at least 50% of job growth in the U.S.

“The influx across the border from what we can tell is essentially stopped, and that’s where we were getting millions and millions of migrants over the last four years,” she said. “That has had a huge impact on the ability to create jobs.”

‘Crops did go to waste’

Just across the border from Mexico in McAllen, Texas, corn and cotton fields are about ready for harvesting. Elizabeth Rodriguez worries there won’t be enough workers available for the gins and other machinery once the fields are cleared.

Immigration enforcement actions at farms, businesses and construction sites brought everything to a standstill, said Rodriguez, director of farmworker advocacy for the National Farmworker Ministry.

 “In May, during the peak of our watermelon and cantaloupe season, it delayed it. A lot of crops did go to waste,” she said

 

In Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles, Lisa Tate manages her family business that grows citrus fruits, avocados and coffee on eight ranches and 800 acres (323 hectares).

Most of the men and women who work their farms are contractor-provided day laborers. There were days earlier this year when crews would be smaller. Tate is hesitant to place that blame on immigration policies. But the fear of ICE raids spread quickly.

Dozens of area farmworkers were arrested late this spring.

“People were being taken out of laundromats, off the side of the road,” Tate said.

Lidia, the farmworker who spoke to the AP through an interpreter, said her biggest fear is being sent back to Mexico. Now 36, she is married with three school-age children who were born here.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring my kids,” said Lidia. “I’m also very concerned I’d have to start from zero. My whole life has been in the United States.”

 From construction to health care

Construction sites in and around McAllen also “are completely dead,” Rodriguez said.

“We have a large labor force that is undocumented,” she said. “We’ve seen ICE particularly targeting construction sites and attempting to target mechanic and repair shops.”

 The number of construction jobs are down in about half of U.S. metropolitan areas, according to an Associated General Contractors of America analysis of government employment data. The largest loss of 7,200 jobs was in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California, area. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area lost 6,200 jobs.

 

“Construction employment has stalled or retreated in many areas for a variety of reasons,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “But contractors report they would hire more people if only they could find more qualified and willing workers and tougher immigration enforcement wasn’t disrupting labor supplies.”

Kramer, with Pew, also warns about the potential impact on health care. She says immigrants make up about 43% of home health care aides.

The Service Employees International Union represents about 2 million workers in health care, the public sector and property services. An estimated half of long-term care workers who are members of SEIU 2015 in California are immigrants, said Arnulfo De La Cruz, the local’s president.

“What’s going to happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider?” De La Cruz said. “What happens when immigrants aren’t in the field to pick our crops? Who’s going to staff our hospitals and nursing homes?”