Trump Halts Immigration Raids on Farms and Hotels. Or Does He?
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The Trump administration, citing the economy, moves to ease workplace deportation raids on farms and hotels before maybe reversing course now. Plus, the Justice Department uses a sue-and-settle tactic to block a Texas law that offers in-state tuition to so-called dreamers. Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with The Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues, Alicia Finley and Kim Strassel.

President Trump seems to be being pulled in opposite directions on how far he wants his mass deportation project to go, including with respect to workplace immigration raids.

On Thursday morning, he posted this on Truth Social, quote,

Then over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security apparently directed immigration officials to pause immigration raids on farms, restaurants, hotels. The journal's news story on this quotes a Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, saying, "...we will follow the president's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets."

Yet the other instinct is also at play. Also, later on Thursday, President Trump wrote that President Biden had let in 21 million unvetted illegal aliens, said they had stolen American jobs. Also added this, I campaigned on and received a historic mandate for the largest mass deportation program in American history.

Now, there are some news reports on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security is reversing course, undoing the pause that it had put on workplace raids on farms, hotels and so forth. The Washington Post story cites a Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, saying this. There will be no safe spaces for industries to harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ISIS efforts.

Alicia, what do you make of this back and forth and the broader economic dilemma facing the Trump administration when we have an economy, businesses that are hungry for workers? Right. So I think President Trump is of two minds on this, and that's because he's being pulled in two different directions by his advisor, on one hand, Steve Miller, who is his advisor.

deportation chief or czar who has been advising him since his early in his first term on immigration policy and border policy. And Mr. Miller's view is that we should get all illegal or undocumented immigrants out or people who were provided conditional status under Biden. Trump is also listening to the business community.

And he is a businessman, and we know his hotel is also employed. Well, we don't know necessarily undocumented workers, but immigrant workers, often on H-2A or H-2B, rather, temporary visas. And immigrants and undocumented immigrants in particular industries like agriculture,

construction, hospitality, make up a large share of the workforce. Undocumented immigrants make up about 40% of the farm workers in the country. So if all of a sudden ICE were to mount raids on a lot of these farms, farmers wouldn't be able to harvest crops. You would have a lot of spoilage. Exports would also be harmed. And so you'd see a lot of, I guess in economic terms, deadweight loss, but a lot of economic destruction.

As a result, and so last week he was very attuned to these business interests, especially the farmers. He likes to say how much he loves the farmers. And he did get a lot of support in agricultural areas in the country. And that, by the way, includes California's Central Valley, which has the country's biggest fruit and vegetable producer. And by the way, they rely largely on an undocumented workforce.

And so I think last week when he pivoted on this, it was because he was listening to the business interests. And what may have happened this week is maybe Stephen Miller came and said, no, no, no. If you lighten up, that'll just provide an invitation or encourage more people to come to the border, which, by the way, I think is wrong. But I think maybe Stephen Miller got the better hand this week.

One news story that caught my eye as an example of this is a report from a local NBC affiliate talking to Vincent Scardina, a Trump voter who has a roofing company in Key West, Florida. And according to this NBC report, six of his workers, who were originally from Nicaragua, were picked up late last month on their way to a job. According to their attorney, I haven't been able to verify this, but according to their attorney, five of those men were

have valid work permits in the United States and pending asylum claims and no criminal records. This is a piece of Vincent Scardina speaking to that local NBC station. It's financially as well as emotionally. It takes a toll. You get to know these guys. You become their friends, just not an employer, but a friend. And you see what happens to their family. It's a

It's quite a shock. Given his support for the president, we asked what he would tell the commander in chief if he had a chance. What happened here? This situation is just totally, just blatantly not at all what they said it was. Vincent, you voted for Donald Trump? Yes, I did. Kim, again, to underline that, we haven't been able to verify independently that these Nicaraguan workers in Key West who were picked up had valid work permits.

and pending asylum claims. But if that indeed is the case, if their attorney is being straight about that, it seems like it's a strange enforcement priority. It seems what's been happening here is that a couple of weeks ago, we had Stephen Miller give that talk where he talked about the need to increase deportations to about 3,000 a day, and ICE ramped up. And now we're having what I always thought was going to be an

inevitable conversation within the administration. Once they had moved beyond the population of violent criminals, and there are certainly a fair number of them in the United States and valid targets for deportation, they were going to get to this question of what to do with everyone else, whether those people have valid work permits and are waiting for asylums, whether they came in and they are undocumented. That fight is now unrolling.

And I think it's important, the big words as part of that interview were Trump voter. And that's one of the discussions that's happening here as well, too. Alicia talked a bit about the economics, but there's a political aspect to this as well. And it wasn't just Brooke Rowlands, the president's agriculture secretary, who was making the argument that this was very damaging for farmers and the economic heartland.

But also a flood of business leaders who have called in over the past week saying it's hurting my industry, my industry and my industry. And these are all people who supported the president's bid for higher office. You have the farmers. Alicia walked through that. You have many businesses and business owners in the hospitality arena where people are working.

In some sort of service capacity. By the way, it makes no sense to be crushing these businesses by taking away their workers when Republicans are meanwhile working overtime to come up with Donald Trump's no taxes on tips provision, which is all about taxes.

a giveaway or a sort of sugarplum to people who work in the hospitality industry. We've had small businesses calling in. Again, Republicans working very hard to unshackle those small businesses from a crush of Biden regulations. But if you turn around and take away their workers, you leave them no better off. And

this is a valid point. We can talk all we want. Donald Trump can put out those statements saying they're stealing American jobs. But if you look at the pure economic numbers, there are indeed, there remain always a number of jobs that Americans generally don't do and that these workers fill a really vital role here. And so we have to see where this rolls out. I would take, I would just

offer this caution about the Washington Post story that came out saying that there's now been a reversal and that these raids will start again on the ag industry and hotel industry. Because of that quote you gave, Kyle, it says there will be no safe spaces for industries that harbor violent criminals. So what we don't know yet here is whether or not the raids are going to begin again, although with a target of those that are on the violent criminal list,

and leaving everyone else alone, or whether or not once they go in, they sweep up everyone. I think that remains to be seen. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. The Department of Defense is working with Google to help secure America's digital defense systems, from establishing cloud-based zero-trust solutions to deploying the latest AI technology. This is a new era of American innovation.

Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation. Welcome back. An important thing also to note here is there are migrants who are working in these industries who get there in all sorts of ways. And some of them, Alicia, present falsified documents and get through the E-Verify system. But some of them also do have valid work permits, a lot of them, that the Trump administration may not respect.

may not continue or may revoke. There's an Associated Press story last week noting that the Department of Homeland Security has begun notifying hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans that their temporary permission to live and work in the United States has been revoked and they should leave the country. It goes on to say that there are about 500,000 people from Cuba

Cuba and Haiti and Nicaragua and Venezuela, who were given work permits under the Biden administration. And it's one thing to say that maybe you disagree with that policy by the Biden administration. But again, it seems a bit of an odd enforcement priority in my mind to go ahead and revoke those, especially when you're talking about people from a country like

Cuba or Venezuela or Haiti, people who might actually have a pretty credible claim to asylum if they're fleeing a tyrannical communist government. Right. So the Biden administration set up this program known as humanitarian parole for certain countries. And the intent was actually to reduce the numbers flooding over the border. And they created this CBP one app and you could apply for

essentially to be let in without actually having to come to the border. And then when you had a hearing aid, you'd be let across. I mean, it was supposed to actually reduce the chaos at the border. And actually, I would argue I had a bit of success. You did see a reduction in numbers from these countries as a result.

I think that there's also an argument that can be made, valid argument, that this was an arbitrary and capricious and exceeded the president's authority under the immigration law. Though, on the other hand, the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress has delegated the president with broad authority over the issue and who to let in and how to conduct immigration policy and especially border security because that is considered national security.

But that said, these people are already in the country. They've been granted work permits. So Trump administration is essentially pulling the rug out from underneath them. And I don't think that it'd be all too different if the Trump administration were to all of a sudden revoke the work permits for the DACA program for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The DACA program.

And that was a program that Obama set up in 2012 for children who were brought into the country illegally as kids. And they were provided not necessarily legal status, but work permits and essentially were shielded from deportation.

And so many of them are currently working under these work permits that get renewed every few years. And I think it sets a bad precedent for the Trump administration to come in and say, hey, well, even though one administration provided you a license or authorization to work here, we can just now tear that up. And I think that raises, one, due process concerns, but it's also just not a humane way of running immigration policy.

I think the separate issue of migrants and what happened with essentially the government paying for expenses in New York City, I think it was more than $300 a day to shelter some of these migrants. But these people are working. So they are contributing economically. So it doesn't really make sense from an economic perspective either to try to force them to self-deport from the country.

Kim, to your point on we will have to see how the Trump administration now proceeds actually on the ground. I think that's a good one because part of what I think is important to understand is that President Trump says a lot of things that are meant as verbal deterrents.

And so that is part of what makes it hard to gauge how far he actually intends to go to take again his true social post talking about Biden letting in 21 million unvetted illegal aliens and wanting to enact the largest mass deportation program in American history.

I know there are analysts who quibble with that number of 21 million. But if you take it at face value, that is about one in every 20 people living in the country. And so it's hard to gauge sometimes from the outside, it seems to me, how much Trump is saying that for purposes of deterrence. And it seems to be working at the border. The numbers at the border, people crossing border encounters by Customs and Border Protection have

slowed to a trickle compared to under President Biden. But it does raise the question of how far now when he gets from the true social post to actually directing the government agencies, including ICE, how far he actually wants them to go. Here's what we've learned over the last four or five years is that the words and the actions of the president are immensely important in terms of the numbers of people who are coming to the border and coming across.

Joe Biden essentially signaled even before he got into office that the border would be open. His party continually reinforced him in that, pushed back against any efforts to crack down on the border. It was a continual four years of watering down regulations, watering down enforcement. And that's

That signal worked. We had floods and floods of people came. And only toward the end, remember, Joe Biden insisted that he really wanted to deal with this problem, but the only way that it could happen was to pass something through Congress. That didn't happen. And in the end, Donald Trump came in and merely by accident,

reposturing and making it clear that this was no longer going to be tolerated, that people would be turned back, that we were going to enforce our sovereignty, those floods have dried up to trickles. And the border enforcement numbers are really quite remarkable these days.

So you have what Donald Trump says. And by the way, I do think that that's very important that the president overall projects a message that we have borders and borders that we intend to keep secure. That's another question and separate from what we now do with the 21 million that are here. I don't think most Americans are in favor of deporting all of them. There are categories of people here that have expressed

a great deal of sympathy by many Americans, including, Alicia mentioned, the Dreamers, kids who were brought here when they were very young. They've really only known America. They're making their way in this world here, and to rip them away from the only home that they've ever known is something that would be truly inhumane.

There is going to have to be a very serious discussion, though, within the administration about where they go next after they have rounded up violent criminals or maybe even nonviolent criminals. There are a lot of people who have come here just in the last two years. You mentioned the CBP One app and the temporary protected status that Biden had been granted.

I agree that this is all deep unheaval for those who are granted this. But one thing I think we cannot forget that the truly inhumane folks that were engaged in this were the prior administration who took a little bit of license with the law in some ways and did invite people in and now have left them in a very precarious position. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment.

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From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome back. Let's turn to another story in recent days. Texas has a law passed under Republican Governor Rick Perry, as I understand it, Alicia, that offered in-state tuition to these dreamers, children who were brought to the United States through no fault of their own, grew up in Texas, probably graduated from Texas high schools. The Trump Justice Department, however, sued Texas to block this law and

And interestingly, the state officials immediately basically gave in and signed a settlement agreement so that they will no longer offer that in-state tuition. What do you make of that sort of legal tactic and that broader policy choice, I guess, by the Trump Justice Department to make an issue of this?

Well, I think this was a bad choice by the administration. I think it all set a bad precedent for another Democratic administration or what they could do. Essentially, what happened is what the Republican governor and AG Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott did is they did a version of the left sue and settle. And that's when an environmental group typically sue a federal government or an administration over some policy that

they didn't include a certain species as endangered. And then the government does not even attempt to defend the policy and just settles outright with the environmental group. And it's not just environmental. There are other liberal outfits that also soon engages in this kind of tactic.

And the government settles by agreeing to change the policy or repeal a policy and that it effectively rewrites the law or regulations. And in this case, what Paxton and Abba did, I mean, this all seems very staged in terms of they agreed to settle the same day and got a judge to bless that agreement or consent decree to not enforce this policy and effectively repeal it. And I think what's also interesting is that the Republican legislature considered a

rescinding and repealing this policy for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and those dreamers, as you described, during this last legislative session, but they declined to. So Abbott and Paxson are essentially doing an end run around the legislature, usurping their powers.

I think there was a strong argument that federal law that the Justice Department invoked to challenge this policy was in itself unconstitutional. I would have liked to see this and maybe it still gets litigated in a federal court because there's a group that's actually now seeking to intervene post hoc in this lawsuit saying you can't just immediately...

settle this case without providing third parties who could be affected by an opportunity in an interview. So we may actually see that consent decree ripped up. That'll probably go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, I imagine. But I think, as I said, I think it sets a dangerous precedent because what you could have is a future Governor Gavin Newsom sue California another four years because he didn't like some kind of voter initiative that's been put

Prop 13, which caps property taxes and says, oh, that's unconstitutional no matter what. Makes some kind of dubious argument in California to agree to settle it, gets a federal court to tear it up, and oh, they just essentially repeal a state law. And so I think you could very well see that happen now going forward now that Paxton, Abbott, and DOJ have set that precedent.

Let's end with a letter from a listener. Jim writes in related to our podcast last week in which we discussed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran migrant who was deported to El Salvador, ordered to be facilitated, brought back and is now back in the country.

in the country facing federal charges. Jim says there were some comments about his due process. There needs to be a discussion about do illegal residents have the same rights as legal residents? This is an overdue discussion. Some coverage says they don't. Others ignore the issue. With all the illegals that came in over the last few years, there is no way to have every one of them subject to our full legal system.

And Kim, I'm hoping we can help clarify that a little bit. Often, deportation proceedings take place in immigration court. These are courts that are part of the executive branch. They are not judiciary branch Article III courts. And there are many differences. For example, the burden of proof. If the government wants to put you in jail for committing some crime, they have to prove that to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

And when a migrant is making an asylum claim, for example, the burden of proof is on them to prove that they have a right to that asylum. And so the phrase due process maybe can be confusing because the due process standard is.

in these sorts of cases is different than in a criminal case of someone who is a legal resident or a U.S. citizen. The due process, it's just the process that is due. And so, for example, on the Alien Enemies Act,

The Supreme Court has said that you have a right if the administration says, we think you are a member of a Venezuelan gang and we are going to deport you summarily. In response to that, you have a right to raise your hand and say, excuse me, I am not actually a member of a Venezuelan gang. And so the due process might be pretty limited here, but it has to be something. So one of the allegations in one of these cases that went to the Supreme Court was that officers at one of these detention facilities were

were distributing notices under the Alien Enemies Act in English only, saying that certain people in custody were subject to removal and might be removed later that day. And that is the kind of standard that I think in the Supreme Court's view would not

meet due process, even if, again, that due process standard is substantially lower than what it would be if you or I were sitting in a dock in criminal court. Yeah, just from a very basic perspective, any individual in the United States is guaranteed some element of due process. And by the way, that's one of our constitutional amendments, the Fifth Amendment, no one shall be deprived of life or liberty or property without the due process of law.

As you say, and by the way, Americans should be happy about that too, because one of the reasons due process is useful is if you are engaged, for instance, in a lot of mass deportations, if you happen to be an American citizen,

With American paperwork and you are accidentally swept up, due process is going to guarantee you an opportunity to make sure you're not on that plane headed to a foreign country when your actual citizenship resides here in the United States. So due process is a protection for all individuals, and we should be thrilled by that. The question then becomes...

What process are you due, as you said? And there's a sliding scale there. And you mentioned a couple of examples of how that does slide downward, as it were, in the immigration realm in terms of different statuses. And there are different statuses, whether or not you have a

visa, whether or not you have lawful permanent residence, whether or not you are here on an undocumented basis. One of those, for instance, too, and I think of a lower category is we still have something called expedited removal for some immigrants, recent migrants to the United States. It used to be that...

If you were caught within 100 miles of the border and you had entered within the past two weeks, you were subject to expedited removal proceedings, which have a pretty low standard for what you are entitled before you are sent back over the border. Trump expanded what counted under the expedited removal process when he took office again to make it more within anyone who had come with, I believe, within the last two years. So that's a standard that also changes. But

The reality is a lot of the folks who came here when they came across the border, many were what we call gotaways, but a lot of them came through, gave their information and already have hearings on the books at some point to validate their asylum claims.

I understand that that can take some time, but the overall benefit to the country of engaging in these levels of due process as required under the Constitution is really to benefit to all of us, even if it is a little time consuming. And Congress, by the way, is currently having a discussion about putting some more money toward all of that in order to increase the size of those courts and the speed with which we can get through some of those claims.

Thank you, Kim and Alicia. Thank you all for listening. You can send your own emails to pwpodcast at wsj.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. And we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of Potomac Watch. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small.

The Department of Defense is working with Google to help secure America's digital defense systems, from establishing cloud-based zero-trust solutions to deploying the latest AI technology. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American innovation.