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President Trump is trying to remove millions of immigrants from the United States, including many who entered the country lawfully under President Biden and had authorization to work. Court challenges have slowed Trump's efforts, and still, employers are losing workers as a result. One part of the country that's welcomed large numbers of immigrants in recent years is feeling the hit. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports from Louisville, Kentucky.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: At the sprawling GE Appliance Park, Julie Wood takes me to see how washers and dryers are made. You have giant stamping presses that turn rolls of steel into familiar parts.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINES RUNNING)
JULIE WOOD: The lids and all the different metal pieces that come together.
HSU: On another line, workers move efficiently, getting the parts in place.
WOOD: They're working on the top of the unit where you're going to start to put in the controls and the electronics.
HSU: Wood leads corporate communications for GE Appliances. The company has about 5,000 production workers in Louisville. They also make refrigerators and dishwashers here. Like many employers in the region, the Appliance Park draws workers from all over. The union says 20 different languages are spoken here. Wood says they don't track employees by nationality, but...
WOOD: As long as people are eligible to work, they are welcome to work for us.
HSU: Who's eligible has gotten narrower in recent months. Trump ended Biden-era programs that allowed more than a million people to enter the country legally and remain here on humanitarian parole. Trump said Biden failed to properly vet people. He's also railed about immigrants taking American jobs. A young woman from Cuba is among those who was told, you need to leave. NPR agreed not to name her because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities. I asked her, were you surprised?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes, very.
HSU: Yes, very. She'd come to the U.S. last summer in search of freedom and financial stability. In January, she landed a job at the appliance park.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: "It was a dream," she said. The job paid well and came with great benefits. Her plan was to send money back home to her family, but then Trump canceled her parole, and by late May, she was out of a job.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She was one of 148 people at GE Appliances who could no longer work because of a change to their immigration status. Julie Wood says that hasn't caused a major disruption because the company always has extra people on hand to fill in for absences.
WOOD: And as we have been monitoring this situation, we have kept some extra additional people just in case.
HSU: Still, in parts of the plant, the departures have been felt deeply. Jaelin Carpenter is a team leader on a washing machine line. She lost four people on her team of 26.
JAELIN CARPENTER: These are people who are on critical jobs.
HSU: They're responsible for screwing in the platform that holds the washing machine motor and installing the hose.
CARPENTER: If you don't do the job correctly, that can flood somebody's house.
HSU: Carpenter, who's also a union shop steward, says temporary replacements were brought in, but it's not the same as having a solid team of people you trust in place.
CARPENTER: It's a pain when you have to come in and actually worry about it. Like, oh, who's going to be on the job today?
HSU: Trump says his immigration policies are aimed at protecting American workers. But Louisville has welcomed immigrants, in part because employers need them. Sarah Ehresman is with the workforce development board known as KentuckianaWorks.
SARAH EHRESMAN: It's interesting, Louisville metro itself would have lost population last year without international migration.
HSU: And Ehresman says manufacturers, especially, are going to continue to need workers, because the ones they have are aging.
EHRESMAN: Twenty-six percent of the sector's current workforce is ages 55 and older.
HSU: Leaving open the question, who will replace them? Not to mention, GE Appliances has announced new production lines. They'll need 800 more workers within two years. Now, as for the woman from Cuba we met earlier, well, in a twist of fate, she got rehired a couple weeks ago after receiving new work authorization tied to her application for political asylum. Despite this, she remains on edge.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She says, "everything has changed under this president."
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
HSU: She says, "one day I have a permit to work. The next day, I open my eyes, and I don't. One day I might have political asylum. The next day, no, I won't. You never know," she says.
Andrea Hsu, NPR News, Louisville, Kentucky. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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