Donald Trump has picked up where his administration’s immigration enforcement efforts left off. He recommenced ICE raids on farms and hotels within days of recommending a temporary stop to these raids. This uneven and erratic approach to deportation exposes the very real Republican on Republican civil war that rages in his administration over immigration policy.
Throughout Trump’s administration, ICE has had to scramble to follow through on a unified strategy of expansive deportation. Retreating advisers have fought turf wars with rival counselors for the direction of the policy, producing shotgun results and haphazard policy decisions. In a hugely consequential maneuver, ICE officials were given directives to largely halt raids and arrests within the agricultural, hospitality and restaurant sectors. This directive took a 180-degree turn under tremendous influence from hardline forces in the administration.
Even the administration’s own measures led to egregious detentions. In particular, a legacy of that crackdown is hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested by agents at meatpacking plants. These actions are part and parcel with Trump’s larger agenda to harass industries where undocumented workers tend to be concentrated. According to the American Immigration Council, undocumented immigrants accounted for 4.6% of the U.S. workforce. Over 7 million of them work in critical industries including agriculture, hospitality, and construction.
Trump has been surprisingly candid about the way his “very aggressive” raids torture farmers and hotel operators. This realization exposes a new source of tension between his priorities on deportation and the competitive pressure these industries are under. Despite this acknowledgment, he has publicly committed to enforcing what he describes as the “single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” with a focus on major urban areas typically governed by Democrats.
The President’s speeches and comments lately suggest a zero-tolerance approach to any industry that employs undocumented immigrants. He announced that there would be no more “sanctuaries” for those who obstruct ICE’s work or harbor felons with violent histories. This feeling is just part of the administration’s larger plan to implement immigration laws more strictly in many industries.
After a brief suspension of operations, Trump ordered ICE raids in the agricultural and hotel sectors to resume following a four-day pause. This decision points to the arbitrary plateau that daily arrests have reached, stalling under his administration at about 2,000 per day. This number has raised condemnation and outrage and calls for a more sensible immigration enforcement strategy.