New Mexico oilman Johnny Vega laid out his predicament as his crew hoisted pipes from a well during the biggest oil boom in U.S. history. There is no shortage of Hispanic and Latino immigrant oil workers without work permits he could hire in Lea County, New Mexico – the No.2 oil-producing county in the United States.
The son of a Mexican guestworker, Vega told RushHourDaily that it was difficult finding enough legal workers to meet the demand for his oil well service rigs. He told reporters that he wants to play by the rules, not least because of a heightened risk of company audits by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Donald Trump. As a result, he has equipment that could be generating $700,000 a month standing idle in his yard.
“They’re demanding more rigs, more swabbing units, but you don’t have enough employees,” said Vega, who runs Mico Services with around $17 million in annual revenues. “It’s a lack of a system to get legal workers, to have more of a workforce to pull from,” he told RushHourDaily.
Employers like Vega in the Permian Basin oilfields of New Mexico and Texas say they feel caught between Trump’s support for their industry and his policies focused on tougher immigration enforcement.
It is a dilemma faced in other sectors of the U.S. economy that depend on foreign workers after ICE reported surges of between 300% to 750% in worksite investigations, audits, and arrests in the fiscal year 2018.
Visas for temporary jobs in sectors like agriculture and hospitality have increased during the Trump administration. Oil companies complain of difficulties gaining work permits for immigrant oil workers, who do not qualify for these temporary visas.
The Permian Basin, by far the most productive oil field in the United States, has helped make the country a net exporter of oil. Its output growth has recently slowed, but production is still at all-time highs.
The number of rigs drilling for oil in New Mexico hit a record 115 in early October and labor shortages are felt most keenly in service companies like Vega’s that help keep the oil flowing.
The Permian Basin is short 15,000 workers, with demand met by paying overtime and shipping workers in and out, according to data from the Permian Strategic Partnership alliance of 19 energy companies.
RushHourDaily reports said that thousands of immigrants, mainly from neighboring Mexico, have thronged to the decade-long boom. They often fill the hardest and most dangerous jobs few Americans want, such as using heavy equipment to lift oil well tubing or lay pipelines.
For Bob Reid, immigrants provide a solution to labor shortages and a chance for boom-bust oil towns like Hobbs, New Mexico to build a more stable future.
“The problem is a broken system that’s preventing them from coming in legally in a way that allows them to pursue a path to citizenship,” said Reid, head of the JF Maddox Foundation, a Hobbs charity.
Reid, head of the JF Maddox Foundation, a Hobbs charity, said in reports by RushHourDaily that “The problem is a broken system that’s preventing them from coming in legally in a way that allows them to pursue a path to citizenship.”
Related: Trump, Lopez Obrador to stop the flow of weapons to Mexico
