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President Donald Trump has alluded that he plans to work with lawmakers on a temporary pass system that would allow undocumented workers in the agriculture and hospitality sectors to remain employed, despite mixed signals from his administration.
Some shit you should know before you read: If you’ve been following along, there’s a lot of mixed messaging when it comes to ICE conducting workplace raids in the agriculture, hospitality, and restaurant sectors. Earlier this month, an internal DHS communication directed ICE officials to suspend all worksite investigations and operations targeting these industries, with exceptions only for cases involving serious crimes such as human trafficking, money laundering, and drug smuggling. The directive also prohibited the arrest of “noncriminal collaterals” (illegal immigrants with no criminal offenses beyond immigration violations). This shift came after President Trump acknowledged that deportation efforts were inadvertently harming sectors heavily reliant on immigrant labor, particularly farms and hotels, where long-standing workers were being removed and proving “almost impossible to replace.” Roughly one week later, Trump directed ICE to resume workplace raids, which left some confused as to what his policy on the matter was.
What’s going on now: During an interview with Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures, President Donald Trump discussed plans to create a temporary pass system for illegal immigrant workers in the agriculture and hospitality industries, aiming to mitigate the economic impact of mass deportations. “I cherish our farmers,” Trump said. “And when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years, who were good, who possibly came in incorrectly… we’re going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge.” He emphasized that employers—particularly farmers—should have some oversight over who stays, saying, “The farmer knows he’s not going to hire a murderer.”
The temporary pass, according to Trump, would allow undocumented workers who have been employed long-term to remain on the job under specific conditions. “We’re going to work it so that, some kind of a temporary pass, where people pay taxes, where the farmer can have a little control as opposed to you walk in and take everybody away.”
Trump acknowledged the economic impact of mass deportations, noting that many American industries (particularly farming and hospitality) rely heavily on undocumented labor for hard-to-fill jobs. “When you go into a farm and you set somebody working with them for nine years doing this kind of work, which is hard work to do and a lot of people aren’t going to do it, and you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away — it’s a problem,” he said.
