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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Trump administration directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels, after President Donald Trump expressed alarm about the impact of aggressive enforcement, an official said Saturday.
The move follows weeks of increased enforcement since Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.
Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote regional leaders on Thursday to halt investigations of the agricultural industry, including meatpackers, restaurants and hotels, according to The New York Times.
A U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to The Associated Press the contents of the directive. The Homeland Security Department did not dispute it.
“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said when asked to confirm the directive.
The shift suggests Trump’s promise of mass deportations has limits if it threatens industries that rely on workers in the country illegally. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he disapproved of how farmers and hotels were being affected.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
While ICE’s presence in Los Angeles has captured public attention and prompted Trump to deploy the California National Guard and Marines, immigration authorities have also been a growing presence at farms and factories across the country.
Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country’s food. Dozens of farmworkers were arrested after uniformed agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados. Others are skipping work as fear spreads.
ICE made more than 70 arrests Tuesday at a food packaging company in Omaha, Nebraska. The owner of Glenn Valley Foods said the company was enrolled in a voluntary program to verify workers’ immigration status and that it was operating at 30% capacity as it scrambled to find replacements.
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, has repeatedly said ICE will send officers into communities and workplaces, particularly in “sanctuary” jurisdictions that limit the agency’s access to local jails.
Sanctuary cities “will get exactly what they don’t want, more officers in the communities and more officers at the work sites,” Homan said Monday on Fox News Channel. “We can’t arrest them in the jail, we’ll arrest them in the community. If we can’t arrest them in community, we’re going to increase work site enforcement operation. We’re going to flood the zone.”
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The enforcement has gone well beyond the “worst criminal illegal aliens” and is being used on anyone, U.S. citizen or any alien who Trump does not like. Both parties need to get their act together and create a clear, and affordable, pathway to citizenship is needed by the U.S. to survive. The reality is the U.S. NEEDS these workers!!!!!
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Correct. Both sides know that. They had a bi-partisan bill ready to go last summer before Trump torpedoed it so that he could use immigration as a campaign issue. Also, at what point do they add child-care workers, elder-case workers, carpenters, roofers, drywallers, etc. to the list of protected industries? These and other jobs are ones the average American don’t want to do.
Why is the US only able to “survive” with near-slave labor?
I agree that we can vastly improve our pathway to citizenship, but let’s face it: the fatcats (neocons and neolibs)who run food processing or the hospitality industry don’t WANT legal citizens. They want a fearful subclass who they can pay below the table, undercutting minimum wages, bypassing safety regulations, and eschewing taxes or other payments for federal benefits programs.
If these immigrants become naturalized citizens or even documented green-card workers, they’ll have the capacity to organize and fight for their rights, maybe even to unionize. The exact opposite of what the fatcats want so they can keep prices low, demand relatively high, and profits through the roof.
The popular leftie trope of “these are jobs Americans don’t want to do” is absolute hogwash.
John Steinbeck became a household name chronicling the lives of American farm workers. Cesar Chavez became a leftie hero by standing up for them IFF they were fellow US citizens. Americans will mop up other people’s vomit in hospitals, they’ll haul garbage until they smell like it even after a shower, they’ll endure privations in remote dangerous conditions drilling shale oil, they’ll poison their lungs to mine coals, they’ll spill their guts out in combat–if there’s commensurate financial reward.
Think of it this way: if Mom and Dad want a date night, they won’t be able to attract even the 11-year-old down the street if they offer a mere $1.50/hour to babysit their two kids for 4 hours. The 11-year-old would decide that an evening listening to Taylor Swift is a better use of their time. Mom and Dad would only be able to pay those wages if they magically teleport a worker from Gambia over here. Or, better yet, use the open borders we had from 2020 – 2024 and the Gambian worker will live in an overcrowded apartment complex half a mile away.
Why is it so hard to actually do things to make AMERICANS” lives easier? Why would you ever expect MAGA to recede when you so steadfastly refuse this simple concept?
The bi-partisan problem that has yielded the current political situation is the excessive regulation/taxation/bureaucraticization coming from the neo-libs and Dems, combined with the complaisance and slimy workaround for those regulations accepted by the neo-cons and GOPs. The big loser: the American blue-collar worker.
As usual, Lauren, too many errors in your manifesto to take the time to dismantle your logic.
TACO
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