Another turnaround in Trump administration policy. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security notified its staff that it had revoked guidelines issued just last week that immigration agents were not to conduct raids on farms, hotels, and restaurants.
The sudden about-face, which comes after days of extremely high tension, with protests against ICE in dozens of U.S. cities, effectively bans the last “free zones,” allowing agents to conduct raids in these facilities as well.
Last Thursday, DHS had sent an email to its employees, asking immigration officials to suspend all investigations at workplaces, in the agricultural sector, restaurants and hotels in operation. The message was sent just hours after Trump expressed sympathy for concerns raised by farmers and hotel executives about his deportation plan.
The president had recently come under pressure from leaders in the two sectors to loosen his grip on a sweeping deportation policy that was costing them dozens of migrant workers. On Thursday, Trump himself had communicated on social media, “Changes are coming to protect our farmers.”
However, as the week began, the federal government decided to retrace its steps immediately. “There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for DHS, said Monday. “Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability.”
ICE has come under intense pressure from government officials to step up arrests in an effort to achieve Trump’s goal of implementing the largest domestic deportation operation in history. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said last month that the administration wants ICE to make at least 3,000 arrests a day.
Miller himself had privately opposed the introduction of free zones for some industries that rely heavily on workers without legal status. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, on the other hand, had been on the opposite side, exposing to Trump the concerns of agricultural executives hurt by the loss of labor.
Finally, on Sunday evening, Trump hinted at the government’s imminent about-face, with a post on his Truth Social account urging ICE officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History”.
