Texas Trump voter says ICE arrests are hurting his lumberyard

Texas lumberyard owner David Reyna, who voted for President Trump in 2024, says the administration’s immigration enforcement has slowed business in Rio Grande City, according to a Washington Post report published Wednesday.

Mr. Reyna, 50, told the Post that fewer customers are visiting his lumberyard and that a house he is building has sat unfinished for months. He described the effect on the local building trade as “completely devastating the local construction industry,” the Daily Beast reported.

Mr. Reyna said he backed Mr. Trump over promises to lower living costs, cut taxes and secure the border. He also said he had seen migrants crossing near his gated ranch during former President Joe Biden’s term.

A Post analysis of government data found that at-large ICE arrests in South Texas, meaning those made in homes, at worksites, at immigration check-ins or in other public places, rose from about 400 in 2024 to more than 9,000 so far in 2026. Since Mr. Trump returned to office in January 2025, nearly 80% of people arrested at large by the agency’s Harlingen field office had no criminal record, the Post found. Mr. Reyna said he did not expect enforcement to reach people without criminal records.

Federal data shows preliminary mining, logging and construction employment in the Brownsville-Harlingen area was 5.3% lower in August than a year earlier. The Post also reported that Cameron County’s labor force has shrunk by nearly 2%. The figures do not establish a cause for either change.

Mr. Reyna predicted political consequences in an area that helped flip the Rio Grande Valley toward Mr. Trump in 2024. A Cook Political Report-TelevisaUnivision survey of Hispanic likely voters in Texas, conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 3, found 22% of Hispanic Trump voters did not back a Republican House candidate in a generic matchup. Among Rio Grande Valley respondents, Democrats led Republicans 53% to 39%. The region is home to three competitive House races, in Texas’ 15th, 28th and 34th districts.

Mr. Reyna is not the only Trump voter expressing doubts. Laura Leigh Taylor, a 37-year-old farmer in Smithville, Georgia, told the Associated Press she regrets her 2024 vote after a friend’s father was deported, and she expects to vote for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.

Opinion among rural voters is divided, according to an AP-KFF survey of more than 2,000 rural voters taken in August. About a third said enforcement had been positive for their communities, a third said negative and the rest said it had no effect. About 4 in 10 said Mr. Trump has “gone too far” on immigration. About two-thirds of rural voters who identify as MAGA Republicans said the policies have helped where they live.