Restaurants, hotels and farms beg Trump administration to exempt them from ICE raids
Restaurants, hotels and farms beg Trump administration to exempt them from ICE raids

Restaurants, hotels and farms beg Trump administration to exempt them from ICE raids

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Diverging Reports Breakdown

Restaurants, hotels and farms beg Trump to exempt their businesses from immigration raids after screeching policy U-turn

There has been mounting confusion across many sectors after an apparent flip-flop on whom immigration raids would target. Hardline members of the administration push to ramp up deportations while President Donald Trump seeks to mollify concerns from businesses. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to The Los Angeles Times on Saturday that the focus would be on people who have committed violent crimes, and not hardworking people in hotels and on farms. “There was finally a sense of calm,’’ said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition. The respite didn’t last long. ‘There’s fear and worry once more’ says the California Farm Bureau’s Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California farm Bureau. � “This directly contradicts the commitments made by President Trump, first in April and again last week,” said Chuck Conner, president and chief executive of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.“We’re going to continue to do worksite enforcement operations, even on farms and hotels, but based on a prioritized basis. Criminals come first.”

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Many restaurants, hotels, and farms traditionally rely heavily on immigrant workers and are begging the Trump administration to spare them from raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

There has been mounting confusion across many sectors after an apparent flip-flop on whom immigration raids would target, as hardline members of the administration push to ramp up deportations while President Donald Trump seeks to mollify concerns from businesses.

Farmers and those in the hospitality sector breathed a sigh of relief last week when the president appeared to order a pause to immigration raids that were disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers off the job.

He said on Truth Social that he would focus the immigration crackdown on criminals — as he also promised during the 2024 campaign — admitting that a more aggressive policy on immigration was taking away jobs that are “almost impossible to replace.”

Indeed, officials from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to The Los Angeles Times on Saturday that the focus would be on people who have committed violent crimes, and not hardworking people in hotels and on farms.

open image in gallery Workers stand handcuffed after being arrested by ICE agents at Delta Downs Racetrack, Hotel and Casino in Calcasieu Parish, near Vinton, Louisiana, on June 18, 2025 ( AP )

“There was finally a sense of calm,’’ said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition. The respite didn’t last long.

On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin declared in an interview: “There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine [immigration enforcement] efforts. Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security, and economic stability.’’

Shi says now, “There’s fear and worry once more.”

Border czar Tom Homan further enforced the message outside the White House on Thursday: “We’re going to continue to do worksite enforcement operations, even on farms and hotels, but based on a prioritized basis. Criminals come first.”

“The current approach to federal immigration enforcement is having a disruptive effect on California’s rural communities and the farmers, ranchers, workers and families who live and work there,” Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau, said in a statement.

Chuck Conner, president and chief executive of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, said that he’s “deeply concerned” about the impact on farms and other agricultural businesses.

“This directly contradicts the commitments made by President Trump to America’s farmers and ranchers, first in April and again last week,” he said in a statement.

Michael Clemens, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the LA Times in March that unauthorized workers fill crucial roles in the hospitality and leisure industries and are “key ingredients” without which other jobs in the industry would cease to exist, he said.

“We have clear evidence that mass deportations will be generally disruptive to the economy and to the U.S. labor market — and specifically hospitality will be hard hit,” Clemens said. “Their labor is a crucial factor of production, and it’s that production that generates other jobs in the sector. That’s something I wish everyone understood.”

open image in gallery A man is detained during a raid by ICE agents at a Glenn Valley Foods meat production plant in Omaha, Nebraska ( via REUTERS )

The flip-flop on not deporting undocumented migrant farm and hotel workers came after the president reportedly faced angry pushback from Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Trump’s brief change of heart regarding who ICE should deport supposedly followed a phone call from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, according to Axios.

Speaking at the White House on June 12, Trump further said: “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe not.”

Noem and Miller approached the president to persuade him to change his mind. The policy was adjusted to align with their position and stated goal of 3,000 ICE arrests every day, and raids on those sectors resumed. In addition, the president made specific threats to Democratic-run cities.

Concern from the agricultural and hospitality sectors, among others, intensified in early June when ICE raids occurred at worksites, including a Home Depot and an apparel firm, in Los Angeles.

The U-turn has rattled the California economy in particular, the fourth-largest in the world, which could contract this year, according to a forecast published by UCLA on Wednesday.

The California Chamber of Commerce said that given the fluidity of current events, it is unclear what the impact on the state’s economy will be.

open image in gallery Demonstrators against ICE raids protesting on the streets of Los Angeles ( AFP/Getty )

“The current situation is bad for our communities and bad for businesses,” the chamber’s President and Chief Executive, Jennifer Barrera, said in a statement in the LA Times last week. “And there is broad consensus that those who have lived and worked here for years, without engaging in criminal behavior, should be given a pathway to legally continue to do so without fear.”

California, with a total population of 40 million, has an immigrant population of approximately 10.6 million, 2.28 million of whom are undocumented. They represent about eight percent of workers in the state, generate nearly five percent of California’s gross domestic product, and contribute more than $23 billion annually in local, state, and federal taxes, according to a June report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and UC Merced.

Such data demonstrates the difficulties the Trump administration faces in walking a fine line between deportation targets and their impact on the economy.

Douglas Holtz Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank, told the Associated Press: “ICE had detained people who are here lawfully, and so now lawful immigrants are afraid to go to work … All of this goes against other economic objectives the administration might have. The immigration policy and the economic policy are not lining up at all.’’

Source: Independent.co.uk | View original article

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ice-raids-farms-hotels-b2773327.html

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