George L Carrillo

George Carrillo
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Born	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Nonprofit executive, policy advocate
Known for	CEO and co-founder of the Hispanic Construction Council, commentary on immigration, labor, and housing policy
Website	hispanicconstructioncouncil.com

George Carrillo is an American nonprofit executive and policy advocate. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Construction Council (HCC), a national advocacy and research organization focused on expanding Hispanic participation, ownership, and leadership in the U.S. construction industry. Carrillo is known for interviews and analysis on immigration enforcement, construction labor supply, and housing delivery. He has argued for a lawful work pathway for long-tenured construction workers without legal status and for pragmatic visa expansion to stabilize project pipelines. His views have appeared in national outlets including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, NPR, NBC, and Engineering News-Record.

Early life and education

Carrillo grew up in Chicago, Illinois, in a home rooted in Ecuadorian heritage. His parents, Wilson and Maria Carrillo, worked in factories and taught discipline, humility, and pride in family. They reminded him to honor relatives in Ecuador and to keep perspective on work and opportunity. He attended Saint Patrick’s Academy in Chicago, where he balanced academics, athletics, and service. Those years shaped his belief that strong teams begin with strong families and communities. He later earned a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Phoenix, using his G.I. Bill while attending the police academy. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Phoenix.

Carrillo argues that every young adult should have a real chance at college without taking on crushing debt. He acknowledges that college is not the right path for everyone, yet he insists the option must remain open and affordable. He says college gives young people time to mature, test ideas, and decide who they want to become. He rejects efforts to push students into any single path to close short-term labor gaps. He supports a system that treats college and the trades as complementary routes to the middle class.

Carrillo calls for redesigning education around equity and practical opportunity. He supports early identification of learning differences, high-quality intervention, and clear handoffs across K-12, community college, universities, and apprenticeships. He supports expanded dual enrollment, paid earn-and-learn models, and industry partnerships that provide students with exposure to the trades while keeping four-year options open. He favors lower net tuition through last-dollar scholarships, targeted aid for first-generation students, and straightforward transfer pathways that do not waste credits. His standard is simple: every student should be able to pursue college or a skilled trade without being bankrupt before graduation.

Government service

Carrillo enlisted in the United States Marine Corps afterhigh school and served in the infantry. After active duty, he worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Oregon, with patrol and community assignments. Carrillo’s approach to community policing treated residents as partners in public safety. He built trust through regular face-to-face engagement, coordinated with neighborhood groups, schools, and faith leaders, and followed up with victims and witnesses to keep cases on track. He used data to identify problem locations, emphasized de-escalation and procedural justice in daily contacts, and held offenders accountable while protecting the dignity of community members. His goal was straightforward, to reduce harm, strengthen trust, and improve case outcomes. In 2013, he was awarded Deputy of the Quarter by the District Attorney’s Office for dedication to service, thorough case preparation, and consistent collaboration with prosecutors and victim advocates. He has discussed training approaches that emphasize confidence, safety, and teamwork, and a leadership style based on example rather than volume.

Carrillo later held management roles in Oregon state government focused on access and program delivery in health and human services. Public records list him as a Social Determinants of Health executive manager at the Oregon Health Authority and, earlier, as a Self-Sufficiency executive manager at the Oregon Department of Human Services in Multnomah County, which administers SNAP and TANF. In these roles, he worked to expand access to benefits, oversaw hundreds of millions of dollars for program delivery and health infrastructure, and promoted community involvement in government programs. He encountered resistance rooted in systemic inequities, pressed to change entrenched practices, and used data to justify course corrections that increased equity for urban and rural communities. He also identified procurement risk factors and advocated stronger purchasing standards, helping secure additional funding for tribal residential treatment facilities. Carrillo advocates for workers’ rights and has used state agency human resources data to identify issues affecting underrepresented employees. He has said that state bureaucracy, along with reluctance among senior executives to accept responsibility for reforms, has impeded lasting policy change, particularly when reforms would acknowledge that some practices reinforce systemic racism. His work aligned with Oregon’s Medicaid and equity initiatives that integrate social needs screening, housing, transportation, and language access with care delivery.

Hispanic Construction Council

In 2024, Carrillo co-founded the Hispanic ConstructionCouncil and became its CEO. HCC is a national nonprofit and think tank that publishes research, supports legislation, and provides data and practical tools for Hispanic workers and firms in construction.Carrillo travels the country to share findings and gather feedback. He visits jobsites, union halls, trade schools, chambers of commerce, and city halls. He presents current data on labor supply, safety, cost pressures, and permitting bottlenecks, then listens. He uses surveys, roundtables, and listening sessions to capture what crews, small business owners, lenders, and public agencies need. That field insight shapes HCC memos, model policies, and implementation guides that states and cities can use.

Carrillo’s approach starts with respect and ends with measurable change. He recognizes Latino workers and owners as builders of American housing, schools, and roads. He pairs that recognition with concrete fixes, such as dual-language safety training, fair-classification standards, portable credentials, faster permitting pathways, and practical steps to help experienced workers move into lawful employment. He uses a tight feedback loop, field input informs research, research drives pilots, pilots lead to policy, and policy is tracked with clear metrics. This combination of national travel, open dialogue, and program delivery defines HCC’s work. It is how Carrillo translates listening sessions into legislation, dashboards, and toolkits that help people build and complete projects. During 2025 enforcement actions, HCC data and commentary were cited in national coverage about workforce risks and project delays tied to jobsite raids. HCC communications and media pages also compile Carrillo’s broadcast interviews about immigration, tariffs, and labor markets.

Public positions and analysis

Immigration enforcement and reform

Carrillo has argued that large-scale raids at jobsites would depress labor supply, delay projects, and slow housing delivery. On NPR he said Hispanics make up a significant share of the skilled workforce and that mass removals would be “devastating” for construction and infrastructure schedules. He has been quoted in trade press during the 2025 enforcement wave about workforce absenteeism and a chilling effect on jobsites. Reporting by the Associated Press and The Washington Post documented jobsite and day-laborer raids that formed the backdrop for his analysis.

Carrillo has advocated a lawful work pathway for long-tenured construction workers without legal status and reforms to expand sector visas. In interviews, he backed an industry proposal known as the Building America Stronger Act, described in local and national reporting as seeking legal status for about 900,000 experienced construction workers while maintaining border security and criminal bars. He has also discussed increasing the numerical cap on relevant visas in network interviews. Following the 2025 executive order designating English as the official language of the United States, Carrillo warned that English-only rules can create barriers for workers and families while not addressing workforce shortages.

Healthcare

Carrillo supports universal coverage and argues that access must be affordable at the point of care, culturally and linguistically responsive, and integrated with behavioral health and housing supports. He favors Medicaid designs that reduce administrative burden for families and providers, including simpler eligibility and renewal, automatic renewals where data allow, and clear handoffs between Medicaid plans, community clinics, and social service partners so enrollees do not churn on and off coverage. He supports community health worker models, patient navigation, and social needs screening with referrals to housing, transportation, and addiction treatment, paired with outcomes reporting that tracks whether people actually receive services and stay covered.

Carrillo backs practical steps that lower out-of-pocket costs for families and seniors. He has pointed to policy changes that directly affect household budgets and support faster generic entry, stronger price transparency across the supply chain, and monthly caps on essential drugs for chronic conditions. He also favors passing negotiated rebates through to patients at the pharmacy counter, using $0 preventive drug lists more widely, automatically substituting generics and biosimilars when clinically appropriate, and implementing simpler plan tools such as 90-day refills and plain-language formularies with clear appeals. He argues that these measures reduce nonadherence and protect middle-class budgets without sacrificing safety or access to innovation.

Food Security

Carrillo supports protecting SNAP and opposing benefit cuts that increase food insecurity. He encourages agencies and community partners to equip households with practical tactics that stretch benefits, including meal planning, unit pricing, bulk staples, discount days, and produce matching programs. He backs simpler applications and recertification, longer certification periods for stable households, remote and mobile recertification options, and plain-language, multilingual notices to reduce churn. He supports data matching to coordinate SNAP with Medicaid, ensuring eligible families remain enrolled; nutrition incentives that double EBT dollars for fruits and vegetables; expanded online purchasing and delivery in underserved areas; and retailer partnerships that lower prices on staple foods. He favors SNAP Employment and Training linked to paid pre-apprenticeships and skilled trades programs, with transportation and childcare supports so adults can move into higher wages without losing food security. He also urges rapid disaster flexibilities, including hot-foods waivers when outages or fires disrupt cooking.

Social Security

Carrillo has warned that hypothetical cuts to Social Security would undermine basic security for retirees, disabled workers, and survivors. He argues that even partial reductions would jeopardize rent, medicine, and groceries for households that rely on monthly checks and would weaken local economies that depend on seniors’ spending. He supports long-term solvency solutions that protect promised benefits and preserve cost-of-living adjustments rather than shifting costs to beneficiaries.

Tax Revenue

Carrillo argues that federal tax changes should account for state-by-state differences and target relief to working households. He notes that the net effect of federal changes varies by local wages, cost of living, and state tax structures, which can leave some states with far smaller gains than others. He supports policies that increase take-home pay for workers through refundable credits, larger earned income tax credits, and a more generous child tax credit, along with simpler filing and clearer phase-outs to avoid benefit cliffs. He has also called for distributional analysis by state before major tax legislation, so Congress can identify uneven impacts and design offsets that protect low and middle-income families.

Tariff Policy

Carrillo argues that tariffs act like a tax on construction. When the government adds a duty to imported inputs, suppliers raise prices to cover the new cost. Distributors pass those increases down the line. Contractors see higher quotes for steel, aluminum, lumber products, fixtures, appliances, tile, and stone. Bids go up, schedules slip, and some projects no longer pencil out.

He points to 2025 consumer and industry reporting that tied new tariffs to price spikes on cabinets, furniture, fixtures, and other finished goods. Those increases showed up in kitchen and bath remodels first, then moved into multifamily interiors and single-family builds. Builders trimmed specifications, substituted lower-grade materials, or delayed starts. Homeowners pushed projects into the future or scaled them back to stay within budget.

The effect reaches beyond individual jobs. Higher material costs raise the break-even price for new homes, which slows new construction and tightens supply. Affordable housing deals become harder to finance because gap funding must grow to cover the same scope. Public works also face higher bids, forcing cities and school districts to cut scope or rebid, which adds months to the delivery schedule.

Housing

Carrillo supports targeted fixes that protect households and the building pipeline. He supports fast, transparent exclusion processes for critical inputs, time-limited relief for affordable housing and disaster rebuilds, and stronger domestic capacity, enabling the United States to compete on cost and quality. He also calls for better port logistics, predictable procurement rules, and permitting reforms that shave time and offset part of the cost shock. He wants price transparency from manufacturers to the jobsite so owners can see how much of a bid reflects tariff pass-through versus margin.

Leadership and governance

Carrillo describes leadership as a learned discipline that requires training, coaching, and trust. He argues that organizations should prepare future leaders instead of relying on authoritarian tactics that use fear or humiliation. In coverage of a federal directive that demanded weekly bullet-point reports from employees under threat of termination, Carrillo called the approach “harmful,” saying it erodes trust, raises attrition risk, and weakens service delivery. He contrasts fear-based tactics with servant leadership that sets clear standards, builds capability, and measures results. Carrillo warns that headline-driven management decisions can ripple beyond staff to customers and taxpayers. He has argued that punitive directives slow execution, disrupt procurement, and push hidden costs onto consumers. He points to the debate over a proposed “DOGE dividend” to illustrate how top-down ideas need budget math, legal authority, and an operational plan. In interviews, he questioned the affordability of five-thousand-dollar payments to households and noted that any such program would require an act of Congress.

Carrillo has also criticized media narratives that frame rigid oversight as a simple fix for “lazy employees.” He argues that durable performance comes from clarity, resources, and coaching, not public callouts or threat-based compliance. He says people often quit because of failed leadership rather than pay, and he promotes a training-first model for supervisors that ties authority to responsibility and outcomes. In practice, Carrillo’s approach emphasizes program delivery, equity in access, and modernizing systems through coaching and measurable outcomes. He favors workload mapping, mentorship pipelines, cross-functional rotations, and transparent metrics that balance accountability with psychological safety. He encourages leaders to seek clarity and results without humiliation or threats, to use data to set priorities, and to empower teams to solve problems locally.

Political activity

Carrillo ran in Oregon’s 2022 Democratic primary for governor as a first-time statewide candidate in a crowded field led by former House Speaker Tina Kotek and state treasurer Tobias Read. His campaign emphasized program delivery and equity in state services, including proposals to reduce administrative backlogs, reorganize agency operations, and use paid community oversight committees to guide implementation. He also outlined education and public safety priorities and backed a single-payer “Medicare for All” approach that integrates behavioral health and housing supports.

Carrillo supports leaders who commit to serving all constituents and to community-driven governance rather than special interests. In the 2022 campaign he wrote that his endorsements would not be limited to one party and would focus on candidates who “advocate effectively in an equitable manner for all of their constituents.” He has made cross-partisan endorsements, including a video endorsement of Republican nominee Christine Drazan in Oregon’s 2022 governor’s race that her campaign publicized and that was highlighted by the National Federation of Republican Women. National outlets regularly quote Carrillo on workforce and immigration policy, and business groups invite him to brief policymakers on enforcement and labor impacts.

Media coverage and speaking

Carrillo has appeared across international, national, and regional outlets on immigration, economic challenges, government practices, labor markets, and tariffs. Coverage includes interviews on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NTD News, EPOCH, NPR on construction labor risks from raids, the Associated Press and Vanity Fair on official language policy, The Washington Post on business disruption tied to enforcement actions, NBC Boston on visa capacity, and Engineering News-Record on workforce effects from raids. HCC materials list additional television appearances with CNN, NTD, and Spanish-language media. He has participated in national coalition events associated with the Comité de 100 business network on immigration policy.

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