Businesses confront mixed messages from Trump on whether their workers will be targeted by immigration raids
Businesses are grappling with mixed messages from President Trump and his team on how their workers will be targeted by the ongoing immigration raids destabilizing industries from agriculture to restaurants.
The confusion has often stemmed from Trump himself, who at times has said "changes are coming" to protect some businesses but other times has told undocumented workers that his team "will find you and remove you."
The issue has simmered since Trump began his immigration raids soon after Inauguration Day but has escalated in recent weeks as the administration's raids reached ever deeper into America's labor market.
And the questions from businesses so far have unclear answers at best, from whether criminals or all undocumented workers are being targeted to whether businesses will eventually face penalties.
Trump said Wednesday that the administration is trying to weigh both sides of the issue.
"Look, we have to take care of our farmers, we have to take care of people that run leisure hotels," he told reporters, adding, "But most importantly, we have to get the criminals out of our country."
The uncertainty is unlikely to be fully resolved anytime soon, with Trump torn between competing parts of his voter base.
On one side, he has business interests and farm-world supporters pushing for some moderation. On the other side are other political allies pushing for a deportation effort with no limits.
Meanwhile, reports continue to pour in of disruptions, with even some Republicans warning that current tactics could lead to agricultural shortages and higher food prices.
A recent Goldman Sachs analysis of 2023 census data found that immigrants living in the US illegally make up about 4.4% of the workforce but with much higher concentrations in some sectors.
In landscaping, as the top example from the economists, about 1 in 5 workers is likely to be undocumented, with other areas like agriculture, food processing, and construction also seeing double-digit rates.
The Trump administration has repeatedly pushed aside the critiques, with Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin telling Yahoo Finance in a statement, "the President has been incredibly clear. There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE's efforts."
She added that efforts are aimed at "illegal employment networks that undermine American workers."
The often high-octane tactics from Trump's team have gotten pushback from not just Democrats and business leaders but even some in his own party.
Representative Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, gained notice this past week when he told reporters that ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at farms were "just wrong."
"They need to knock it off," he added of Trump's team. "Let's go after the criminals and give us time to put processes in place so we don't disrupt the food supply chain."
It's a message that Trump himself has sometimes echoed even while overseeing those raids.
"We must protect our farmers," read a recent post from Trump that offered an uncharacteristic acknowledgement of the economic costs, even adding that those being impacted are "very good, long time workers."
It was the articulation of a more nuanced approach that was led by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who followed up with a post of her own discussing "prioritizing deportations" to somewhat more gradually get to the goal of "a stable and LEGAL agricultural workforce."
She added during a recent appearance before Congress that Trump understood "the significant challenges" farmers face and said, "We are doing everything we can to make sure that these farmers and ranchers have the labor they need."
It was a series of moderating signs immediately hailed by groups like the American Business Immigration Coalition, which responded that 'ICE should go after cartels, not farms and hotels."
But the effort to protect farmers — a key Trump constituency — was quickly balanced by swift political blowback from other parts of the president's base.
As such, some Trump aides offered a very different message.
Trump border czar Tom Homan recently told Semafor that businesses are in direct focus and that civil and criminal prosecutions of companies could be in the offing. "Worksite enforcement operations are going to massively expand," he added.
The push and pull led Trump to a series of more hardline posts in the days that followed — which were echoed in apparent tactics on the ground — with the president saying to all undocumented workers that they "should self deport [or] ICE will find you and remove you."
Trump has now appeared to have settled on a compromise policy of sorts.
He has more recently discussed increasing immigration operations in cities that make up "the Democrat Power Center" but perhaps taking a more case-by-case approach to rural areas or Republican-led cities.
He offered some clarity by telling reporters the next day that his policy boils down to "everyone is being looked at, but the bigger problem is the cities right now."
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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