President Donald Trump suggested at a Cabinet meeting Thursday that undocumented people working on farms and in hotels would be allowed to leave the country and return as legal workers if their employers vouched for them.
Trump said at the meeting with reporters present that “we have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people.”
"So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard. We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers."
It was unclear what he meant by “slow it down a little bit for them.” The administration has been pouring resources into arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants to fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to conduct a history-making mass deportation of immigrants from the United States.
Trump said the administration is going to work with people if they “go out ... in a nice way.”
“We’re going to work with them right from the beginning on, trying to get them back in legally. So it gives you real incentive. Otherwise they never come back. They’ll never be allowed once a certain period of time goes by, which is probably going to be 60 days,” he said.
In response to an NBC News request for more details, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the Trump administration "is committed to delivering on the mandate that the American people gave to President Trump with a whole-of-government approach to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and put America First.”
The United States has programs that allow immigrants to come to the country and work, although employers often complain about the difficulties of using them. Farmworker and immigrant advocates have often pushed for better regulation of the programs to ensure workers are not exploited or abused or thrust into substandard living or work conditions.
A White House official told NBC News that Trump wants to improve the H-2A program, through which employers in the agricultural industry can hire temporary and seasonal workers, and the H-2B program, for hiring immigrant workers for temporary, seasonal jobs in other industry sectors, such as hospitality and entertainment, and in the tourism industry. Trump has used the H-2B program.
Trump spoke after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made statements about self-deportation and a Trump administration policy that requires people here illegally to register with the Department of Homeland Security using an app it has dubbed "CBP Home" or face criminal charges and fines. A federal judge on Thursday allowed the registration requirement to go forward.
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About 40% of U.S. crop farmworkers are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department. About 1.1 million undocumented people worked in the hospitality industry — hotels and restaurants — about 7.6% of the workforce, in 2023, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, a legal group that advocates for immigration.
The administration is estimated to have deported nearly 300 people last month, most of them originally from Venezuela, to a megaprison in El Salvador. Trump has declared the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua an "alien enemy," and he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, a wartime law, to deport people immigration officials designated as members of the gang, allegations relatives of some of the deported have contested.
Immigration officers also have been arresting people at homes, schools and universities when they arrive for immigration check-ins or if they are stopped for traffic violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with Texas officials, made several arrests in a Texas community where many homeowners are Latino in February, stopping some people as they headed to work. ICE said at the time that several of them had criminal backgrounds.
Trump has been under some pressure from industries whose workforces include undocumented workers. The pandemic showed that many essential workers were Latino and that in some industries, many were undocumented or were not citizens.
American farmers also have been raising alarms about the effect Trump's tariff policies and funding cuts to federally subsidized school lunch, food banks and other such programs will have on their livelihoods.
In March, business owners and leaders rallied in Washington and met with members of Congress as part of the American Business Immigration Coalition's "Secure the Workforce" campaign, aimed at continuing the flow of immigrant workers to the United States. The group is pushing for legislation that includes, among other things, work permits for immigrant workers.
"What we are seeing is President Trump beginning the negotiations of what a Trump-based immigration plan would look like," said Artemio Muniz, an attorney who employs workers through his manufacturing business and joined the coalition rally and meetings. He was not speaking on behalf of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
He said that he and others supporting the coalition's campaign believe Trump has secured the border and that "we now want to secure the undocumented workers because we don't want to lose them, because if we do, we see an increase in costs. I respect the fact that Trump is willing to initiate the discussion."
