Trump gets back behind raids in immigration whiplash
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Protesters gather outside a Los Angeles car wash where workers were detained by ICE agents last week. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
President Trump surprised immigration hardliners last week when his administration announced it would pause some immigration raids that were hurting the agriculture and hospitality industries.
- Then just as quickly, the MAGA pendulum swung back. Trump said Sunday that a new wave of raids would target immigrants in Democrat-run cities — and Monday there were signs that farms, hotels and restaurants again will be subject to raids.
Driving the news: The whiplash in Trump's approach to his mass deportation plans is the latest illustration of how much his whims — and who speaks with him last — are shaping his decision-making, even on his signature policy issue.
- By Monday, White House insiders were casting the president's latest strategy as "a recalibration," as one senior official said.
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were told Monday that agents should resume raids on hotels and restaurants, but also agricultural businesses, the Washington Post reported.
Zoom out: Immigrant rights groups said Monday they were skeptical about Trump's announced pause in arrests of immigrant workers in those industries.
- They said the constant shifts in enforcement announcements — along with continued raids by masked federal agents, often in unmarked vehicles — were fostering confusion along with fear.
- The United Farm Workers said Saturday that raids in their workers' communities were continuing despite Trump's announced pause. It reported ICE sweeps in the city of Moorpark in southern California, as well as state's Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.
- "If President Trump is actually in charge, he needs to prove it: Stop the sweeps on hardworking Californians. Get serious about building a path forward" to citizenship for unauthorized immigrant farmworkers, the UFW said in an Instagram post.
- "Anything else is bulls**t."
Zoom in: The confusion began late Thursday, when Trump announced on Truth Social that his "very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away" from farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants.
- He implied that some accommodation would be made for such unauthorized immigrants, whom the American Immigration Council estimates make up about 4.6% of the nation's employed labor force — more than 7 million people.
- Trump's announcement, followed by official guidance pausing these types of workplace raids, came after a call from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
- White House staffers say she bypassed the president's top immigration policy officials — Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — both of whom were angry about it.
- Another insider briefed on the discussions, however, said Monday that Rollins had minimal input and works well with the White House.
Miller, Noem and a host of immigration hardliners then mounted their own pressure campaign to modify the modified policy. It worked.
- Trump announced Sunday that the administration would target large U.S. metropolitan areas, especially "sanctuary cities." And his tone was much sharper than it had been on Thursday.
- "ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History," Trump posted on Truth Social.
The big picture: In Trump's "recalibration" toward urban areas, "it just so happens that most of the big cities are run by Democrats, that's just the condition of the United States right now, and so they probably feel targeted," the senior White House official said.
- Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Monday there will continue to be workplace raids: "There has not been a change in our posture."
The intrigue: The drama of the past several days, however, shows that on some level, Trump is ill at ease with what he's hearing from some employers — and from what he knows about the labor force as a hotelier himself.
- "He doesn't need to hear from Conrad Hilton to know about the hotel business," the senior administration official said. "He has his own resort."
What they're saying: "The fact (that) the Trump administration felt the need to announce the 'pause' in the first place is ... a notable admission about the reality of immigrants' contributions to America and the shifting politics and public opinion of the issue," America's Voice, a group that supports immigration reform, said in a statement.
- "Even if Stephen Miller gets his way and the supposed 'pause' isn't real, the initial announcement from the Trump White House is a telling admission about the political and economic blowback of mass deportation," said Vanessa Cárdenas, the group's executive director.
