The Word Shortage Is Just Not Talked About Anymore

Advocacy group warns of grim future for Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

An advocacy group warned that current and pending cuts in National Park Service staff and funding will harm visitors’ experiences, degrade facilities and risk public safety at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The group, the National Parks Conservation Association, last week hosted a webinar, “Building Advocacy for the Delaware River,” that explored how cuts under the Trump administration could ripple through the recreation area, which straddles Pennsylvania and New Jersey and drew more than 4 million visitors last year.

Renee Reber, Mid-Atlantic Climate and Clean Water program manager for the association, said the DWGNRA has slowly seen an erosion of its staffing by 20 percent over the last 15 years. She described the recreation area as “challenged, underfunded and understaffed.”

In the past six months alone, the area’s staffing dropped to 70 employees from 107. She described the staff as “pretty strapped to begin with.”

Association officials credited Park Service staffers with being dedicated public servants and for trying to make the best of a challenging situation. Still, the cloud of job insecurity looms large among them. “They’re coming to their dream job every day and they don’t know if they will have a job tomorrow or next week,” Reber said.

Another round of layoffs, a so-called reduction in force, could happen at any point, Reber said. “The park is already stretched to the max,” she said. “We don’t know yet what is yet to come.”

https://delawarecurrents.org/2025/07/24/national-parks-budget-cuts/

Clinic Staff Face Federal Charges For Allegedly Interfering With ICE Arrest

Two staff members from the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center in California are facing federal charges after allegedly interfering with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest. The incident occurred on Tuesday (July 8) when Denis Guillen-Solis, a Honduran national, fled into the clinic to evade law enforcement during a targeted ICE operation.

The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, stated that the clinic staff attempted to block ICE agents from apprehending Guillen-Solis by allegedly assaulting the officers. The criminal complaint accuses Jose De Jesus Ortega and Danielle Nadine Davila of “forcibly assaulting, impeding, and interfering with a federal officer.” Ortega has been arrested, while Davila remains at large.

The Department of Homeland Security reported that the clinic staff locked doors, blocked law enforcement vehicles, and called the police, claiming a “kidnapping” was in progress. Javier Hernandez, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, confirmed that Guillen-Solis was eventually arrested.

California Assemblymember Michelle Rodriguez criticized the ICE operation, describing it as “devastating” for the community. She emphasized the need for accountability and integrity in law enforcement actions.

https://knrs.iheart.com/content/2025-07-25-clinic-staff-face-federal-charges-for-allegedly-interfering-with-ice-arrest/

Fear of ICE raids creates chilling effect at South Florida construction sites

On a muggy Thursday morning in mid-June, Jorge stood near the parking lot entrance to a Home Depot in Hialeah. The 47-year-old Cuban day laborer scanned arriving pick-up trucks for any glimmer of job opportunities, which have become scarcer each passing week. Nearby, Yosvany, another Cuban day laborer in his late-20s fiddled with his phone as he sat on the curb, resigned to the slog of another slow day. A half-dozen more men milled around, as well.

“When [Joe] Biden was president, contractors were here all day, giving us jobs,” Jorge told The Real Deal. “Under [Donald] Trump, no contractors come by anymore. It’s mostly individuals doing small remodeling jobs.”

Jorge, who emigrated from Cuba five years ago and has a work permit, described a landscape transformed, not by hurricanes or black swan events, but by a loud, surging wave of fear created by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Yosvany, who declined to comment about his immigration status, echoed Jorge’s observations. “Work is sporadic,” he said. “And the people who are coming by want to take advantage of you because they know you don’t have papers.”

Jorge, Yosvany and three other men looking for day jobs at Home Depot spoke on the condition that they not reveal their last names. Across South Florida, the anxiety isn’t confined to Home Depot sidewalks. Conversations with day laborers, union leaders, attorneys, and industry experts reveal a world where fear alone is as forceful a disruptor as any hurricane.

In Brevard County, dozens of landscapers and construction workers were picked up and transferred to already overwhelmed detention facilities. In the Florida Keys, six Nicaraguan roofers — each with work permits — were snatched during a traffic stop and shipped off for deportation hearings. Their employer, Vincent Scardina, and their attorney, Regilucia Smith, declined comment.

Subcontracting firms that once depended on a ready pool of immigrant labor have shifted rapidly. “Subcontractors are scared to hire workers, even those with work permits,” said Rony Carballo, South Florida representative for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

“They don’t want to train people when their status could be revoked overnight,” Carballo told TRD. “It’s like entering a labyrinth with no exit.”

Beyond the Tallahassee raid, many members of the Associated Builders and Contractors have not yet reported large-scale ICE operations at their work sites, said Peter Dyga, CEO of the organization’s Florida chapter. However, the optics of ICE’s Tallahassee operation did have a lasting impact.

Associated Builders represents large commercial contractors that are less concerned with hiring laborers at Home Depot or informal day sites, but the trickle-down fear is real, Dyga acknowledged.

“Everyone’s become more diligent,” he said. “No one wants to be the headline because a subcontractor hired a crew with the wrong documents. We do everything by the book.”

Dyga also noted that uncertainty about workers being rounded up — even ones who have been vetted as having legal status — affects construction budgets.

“The commercial side of our industry cares most about predictability,” Dyga said. “If I estimate a project’s costs today, but six or 12 months from now my workforce shrinks, my whole business model is blown out of the water.”

For employers in the construction and hospitality industries, vetting workers has become a Kafkaesque ordeal, said Scott Bettridge, Miami-based chair of law firm Cozen O’Connor’s national immigration practice. “I’ve got cleaning companies with 40 [percent] to 50 percent of staff affected, many of them Venezuelan,” Bettridge said.

As status revocations multiply, Bettridge said, the burden falls on employers to comb through files, verifying who is legally employable and who might be using false documents. For the layered world of subcontractors that drives Florida construction, the risk multiplies, he added.

“You can ask your [subcontractors] for assurances, but how deep do you want to go?” Bettridge said. “If you micromanage, you risk being considered their direct employer. But if you don’t, you’re gambling that their paperwork is clean. No one has the bandwidth to audit every crew on every job.”

Bettridge considers the national E-Verify system, a database that provides information on the legal status of immigrant workers, as a partial safeguard. But it’s hardly bulletproof.

“Some companies set up a dozen shell entities with 24 workers each to get around a 25-employee threshold in Florida to verify workers’ status,” Bettridge said. “That might comply with the letter of the law, but it’s a risky way to skate by.”

And then there’s the federal government’s draconian approach.

“ICE agents have started showing up with pre-typed waivers asking employers to consent to broad searches, even beyond public areas,” Bettridge said. “We warn our clients: Never volunteer this. But one panicked receptionist or security guard, and suddenly your job site becomes an open book.”

Even lawfully present workers are no longer safe. Union representative Carballo described the case of a Cuban journeyman painter who has been a legal permanent resident for more than a decade. ICE agents scooped him up when he showed up for a military base job in Tampa, Carballo said.

“He got in trouble with the law five years ago and paid his debt,” Carballo said. “Just to pad their detention numbers, they’re ending a man’s life here. He’ll be deported to a third country and lose everything.”

In South Florida, five union members had recent job assignments canceled because their immigration status changed, Carballo said. “Venezuelans, Cubans — people with work permits or seeking asylum — are suddenly being denied by E-verify,” Carballo said. “It means starting from scratch: retraining, delays, higher costs.”

For highly skilled trades like industrial painting — requiring expertise with hazardous chemicals and equipment, and often facing additional hurdles like drug testing — the impact is acute. Carballo estimates over 70 workers whose work permits were revoked lost their jobs with a painting company that has a contract at Orlando’s Disney World.

“Replacing that kind of qualified labor means going back to square one,” Carballo said. “Every delay puts projects behind schedule.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fear-ice-raids-creates-chilling-203430820.html