More than half a million people could be removed from the Florida workforce if federal officials eliminate work permits for pending asylum applicants, a Trump administration priority, eliminating hundreds of thousands of workers from key state industries like construction, hospitality and transportation. 

The state could be faced with the double impact of a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security that would remove work permits, as well as the effects stemming from a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Trump administration’s authority to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians.

“Everything happening in immigration impacts the economy,” said Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “Non-immigrants need to be aware that somehow they get impacted. They’re going to see that there’s not going to be grocery workers, no farm workers. The cost of construction has already increased in Florida because of the loss of construction. The cost of living is only going to get worse.”

Kicking out asylum applicants could eliminate almost $22 billion in income from the Florida economy each year, according to research from the nonprofit WorkPermits.US. 

It would also create a substantial void in the workforce. 

Asylum applicants account for more than 500,000 workers in Florida, including about 100,000 in the construction industry, according to a new report by Philip Connor, a researcher at the Princeton University Center for Migration and Development.

This would be on top of the 93,000 TPS holders in Florida whose status is also being threatened and who contribute an estimated $2.6 billion annually, according to the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.

Immigrants whose TPS status has been revoked sometimes have work permits through asylum applications. But that is now at risk. Cristina Moreno, policy counsel at WorkPermits.US., said this would have a destabilizing impact on U.S. businesses, but especially for South Florida businesses.

At a June 24 news conference, several leaders from the health care and aging services industries explained how much their operations depend on TPS holders and asylum seekers. 

Jason Pincus, vice president and nursing home administrator at Miami Jewish Health, said the company will have to reduce the number of beds in its nursing homes even as the elderly population continues to grow.

Hospitality leaders have raised similar concerns. The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association and the National Restaurant Association sent a letter last month to Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin warning that removing work authorization would create an operational shock for restaurants and hotels, particularly during the busy summer season.

“I think there’s so many ways that we’re going against our own best interests,” said Ana Sofía Pelaez, co-founder and executive director of the Miami Freedom Project. “Up until very recently there was an understanding that immigration is a strength of our country, and it’s been an engine for our economy. Then people saw an opportunity to politicize that and to create a kind of resentment. They took it, and in some ways it’s become the perfect scapegoat.”

The Trump administration has justified the removal of immigrant workers from the workforce by arguing it will open more jobs to U.S.-born citizens. 

“We are now seeing reverse migration as migrants go back home, leaving more housing and more jobs for Americans. In the year before my election, all net creation of jobs was going to foreign migrants,” Trump said in an address to the nation in December of last year. “Since I took office, 100 percent of all net job creation has gone to American-born citizens.”

However, the recent research by WorkPermit.US shows that the principal industries employing asylum applicants collectively employ an estimated 2.3 million asylum applicants while also still accounting for around 7.2 million job openings.

For the workers facing the uncertainty of their loss of status, the policies have brought a new wave of anxiety. 

A South Florida Haitian woman whose TPS status was recently revoked, whose name The Trib is withholding because she fears retaliation, is grappling with being forced back into the shadows of the country she lives in. When she was 17, her father was assassinated, and she had to move neighborhoods to stay safe. Eventually, she migrated to the U.S. to be completely safe and to reunite with her mother, who was already living there.

After graduating from college with honors and building a life for herself over the last several years in Florida, her mother died of cancer. So now, without parents to rely on, losing her TPS means she is surviving on her savings and the support of the community around her. Applying for asylum is now her only option to avoid returning to a country where her life would be at risk.

“Having to live in fear is something I didn’t believe that I would experience in the United States,” she said in an interview. “In a country that supposedly respects every human’s dignity and human rights.”

Zoe Millán is a journalist and graduate of the M.S. at Columbia School of Journalism and a summer 2026 fellow with The Florida Trib. You can reach Zoe at zoe.millan@floridatrib.org.