For weeks, President Donald Trump has tried to appease supporters of the hard line in immigration matters, which were key to their political success, while farmers and other people whose livelihood depends largely on undocumented workers.
On Tuesday, he toured a migrant detention center in the Everglades nicknamed “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” and warned that anyone who tried to escape would have to flee from mortal predators. On the same trip, he said he wanted to allow some agricultural workers to remain legally in the country.
The moment crystallized the contradictory priorities for which Trump navigates as it becomes evident that the scope of his deportation campaign is harming US companies.
“I’m on both sides of the matter,” Trump told Fox News During the weekend. “I am the subject who attends immigration with more force than ever, but I am also the subject who attends agriculture with more force than ever. And that also includes hotels and, they already know, the places where people work.”
Trump’s attempt to establish exceptions to his repressive measures has caused confusion between migrants and businessmen, who have not yet seen a specific plan about what is coming. The president’s statements have also created divisions within the White House and have given rise to contradictory messages by his government.
Here is what Trump has said about his intentions:
What has the president said?
During his trip to the Everglades, Trump described in lazy terms a system that would allow some undocumented workers in the agricultural and hospitality sectors to remain in the United States.
“We are going to have a system to discharge them and do not have to leave,” he said. “They can be legally here, pay taxes and all that.”
He added that farmers need workers to work. “Without those people, a farm cannot be operated.”
Trump said farmers would be responsible for migrant workers, who would not receive citizenship.
“Farmers can be responsible for some people,” Trump said. “They will not have citizenship, but they will be working. They will be paying taxes. We have to get our farmers the people they need.”
In the interview of Fox NewsTrump said his government was “developing some type of temporary permit in which people pay taxes, in which the farmer can have a little control, instead that one between and takes everyone.”
How would the plan work?
The White House has kept silent about the president’s details. Officials have refused to answer questions that intended to clarify whether or not there is a plan.
The National Security Department also declined the requests to clarify Tuesday’s Trump comments.
Trump will need the help of Congress if he wants to provide a serious legal route for workers to stay longer, according to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, political analyst at the Institute of Migration Policies.
He said Trump could do what his predecessor did, President Joe Biden: “Use discretion in judicial actions not to put agricultural workers.”
Trump could focus on improving existing visa programs that allow entrepreneurs to temporarily hire migrant workers. During a meeting of his cabinet in April, Trump said he wanted to reinforce those visa programs.
Trump first indicated that a change was coming last month, when he published on social networks that migrants from the agricultural and hospitality sectors were “very good workers for a long time” and that “changes are coming” in their deportation policies.
That happened after Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, called Trump to underline that farmers and sector groups were increasingly concerned that their repression of migration harmed their labor.
That Rollins initiative enraged other White House colleagues who wanted Trump to maintain his promise of mass deportations. But, days later, the Immigration and Customs Control Service issued a guideline to pause the application of the law in agricultural workplaces, meat packer plants, restaurants and hotels, in the absence of other crimes such as human beings or drug smuggling.
Days later, Trump said on social networks that Ice had to intensify his efforts, especially in Democratic cities. He did not mention the raids in the workplace.
What is happening on the ground?
Teresa Romero, president of the Campesinos Union, who represents 10,000 field workers in California, Oregon, Washington and New York, said in an interview that the raids in the workplaces had continued in the farms throughout the United States, despite the recent ICE guidelines.
“Unfortunately, when there are no policies, it is difficult to know what he proposes,” Romero said about Trump’s recent comments.
However, in other rural areas there have been no ICE raids in recent weeks. But even in the agricultural regions where there has been little application of the law in immigration matters, migrants remain the target of cooperation agreements between local security forces and federal migration authorities.
“Basically, what has happened is that Sheriff’s assistants and police officers stop the undocumented by small infractions and then ask them for an identity document,” said Eddie Delgado, who works in Vidalia, Georgia, an onion producing area, for Migrant Equity Southeast, a non -profit organization. “When they do not give the driver’s license, they arrest them and then take them if they discover that they are undocumented.”
Todd Lyons, ICE in functions, said his agency focused on cases where employers took advantage of workers.
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Lyons said ICE was specially interested in following the track of companies that exploited workers through “human beings, forced labor, children’s traffic, things like that.”
Lyons said that ICE leaders had doubts about the reports that operations in workplaces in certain industries were limited, such as agricultural, and that the address clarified the agency’s position in a recent call.
“All workplaces are still on the table,” he said that the leaders were notified.