President Donald Trump has always maintained that if you have come into this country illegally, you will be deported.
After the farming and hospitality industries asked the president for some help amid his immigration crackdown, he now seems to be softening his stance.
This weekend, Trump stunned all of MAGA by stating that he is working on a special exemption for the farming and hospitality industries.
On Jan. 22 of this year, Trump released a statement regarding the administration’s intent to protect the American people by closing the border.
In part, the release stated, “States, such as the Great State of Texas, have asked the Federal Government for protection against invasion during the Biden Administration, but it failed to protect them from millions of illegal aliens entering the United States, invading their communities, and imposing billions of dollars of costs upon State and local governments.”
The administration had also announced a deportation strategy to remove all illegal immigrants who were permitted to enter the country during the Biden administration.
The plan was to start with nefarious actors, then expand to other demographics of illegals who had entered the country and remained here.
The farming industry relies heavily on illegal immigrants, often paying them lower wages for work that many people simply do not want to do.
There are two schools of thought here. The first is that perhaps farmers need to offer higher pay, even if it means raising food prices.
The second is that farms operating with illegal immigrant labor should be penalized for unlawfully hiring those individuals in the first place.
The industry took a chance, reaching out to the Trump administration for help on this front, asking the president to exclude certain sectors from mass deportations to avoid a negative impact on the food supply chain in our country.
I honestly would have thought Trump would have offered farmers some type of subsidy before allowing them to keep illegals on their payroll, but that is the direction in which he seems to be headed.
This weekend, during an interview on Fox News, Trump stated, “I cherish our farmers. And when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years, who were good, who possibly came in incorrectly. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge. The farmer knows he’s not going to hire a murderer.”
Trump later added, “We’re working on it right now. We’re going to work it so that, some kind of a temporary pass, where people pay taxes, where the farmer can have a little control as opposed to you walk in and take everybody away.”
The shift will remove an avenue of attack against the GOP from Democrats, but will it open the door to some MAGA unrest? Generally, MAGA will follow Trump’s lead, but the comments I have read so far online were not happy about the reversal by Trump. Realistically, we are never going to be able to remove all of the illegals who came in during the Biden administration, not to mention the illegals who were here before. I think Trump can get away with this if he also blocks these people from obtaining citizenship, as I have outlined in my own immigration reform plan. So, what say We the People? Is this a smart move by Trump, or is he headed down a path that will crush the GOP in 2026 and 2028?