President Trump on Tuesday floated a plan to grant legal status to undocumented immigrant farmworkers, claiming that foreign-born migrants are “naturally” better suited than “inner city” Americans to menial agricultural jobs.
In what would be a controversial partial break from his hardline mass deportation plan, Trump said he wants to allow migrant farm workers, millions of whom have lived in the country for years or decades, to remain in the U.S. indefinitely.
“In some cases, we’re sending them back to their country with a pass back (so when) they’re coming in, they’re coming in legally,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC. “We can’t let our farmers not have anybody.”
Trump used the present tense in the interview, even though no such plan currently exists.
Any change to federal immigration laws would normally require congressional action, though Trump might seek to take executive action to achieve his goals, which he portrayed as helping farmers who rely on undocumented immigrant labor.
Trump asserted that low-income American citizens are not as well suited to tough and low-paying farm work compared to immigrants, without offering any evidence.
“People that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They’ve tried, we’ve tried, everybody tried. They don’t do it,” Trump said. “These people do it naturally. They don’t get a bad back.”
Trump has spoken for months about creating some kind of legal status for undocumented immigrants who work in the agriculture and hospitality industries, both of which are highly dependent on them.
He even briefly approved a pause in immigration enforcement actions aimed at California’s vast agricultural heartland in the Central Valley, but it was quickly reversed.
Big Ag and giant hospitality firms have lobbied the White House for a reprieve from his much-hyped mass deportation plan, which aims to oust up to 20 million undocumented immigrants from the U.S., regardless of how long they have lived here.
The corporate titans, many of whom are also Republican donors, point out that America would have no way of feeding itself or running its restaurants and hotels without undocumented immigrants, a rare point of common ground with progressive advocates for immigrants.
Any formal program to carve out a new legal status to groups of undocumented immigrants is likely to spark strong opposition from right-wing hardliners, who decry such compromises as amnesty for law-breaking illegal immigrants.
It’s unclear if Trump has the stomach to push through a plan to ease his own immigration crackdown or if his MAGA base would back him if he does.
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