Laborers work on a jobsite in the Newbrook neighborhood of St. Johns County’s SilverLeaf development. Homebuilders say increased immigration enforcement has driven workers away from SilverLeaf and similar large developments around Northeast Florida. | Joe Lister, Jacksonville Daily Record
Published on November 12, 2026 at 12:59 pm
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When Scott Brannock became president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association, he had no idea that immigration raids and arrest warrants would become one of his biggest worries.
In the last six months, however, a surge in detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has hit Brannock, and other homebuilders in NEFBA, hard.
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Amid a sharp increase in actions by federal ICE agents in recent months, Brannock, president of Tidewater Homes, has become one of several business owners who have seen both legal laborers and those lacking permanent legal status leave the region. Those departures have been forced, coerced or voluntary. The result is a slowdown in home construction in Jacksonville, leaving homebuilding in limbo and further driving up home prices.
Read the rest of this story at the Jacksonville Daily Record, a Jacksonville Today news partner.
