WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he would issue an immigration order “soon,” following a social media post earlier on Thursday in which he cited labor issues in the farm and hotel industries stemming from his immigration crackdown.
“Our farmers are being hurt badly … And we’re going to have to do something about that,” he said at a White House event. “We’re going to have an order on that pretty soon, I think… and leisure, too – hotels.”
He did not say what changes the order would implement or when it would take effect. Representatives for the White House and Department of Homeland Security had no specific comment about the order, while representatives at the Department of Agriculture could not be immediately reached.
“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,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
U.S. farm industry groups have long wanted Trump to spare their sector from mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants.
Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers and many dairy and meatpacking workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNBC that Trump was reviewing all possible steps but that Congress would have to act.
In recent days, demonstrations have been taking place in major U.S. cities to protest immigration raids.
Trump is carrying out his campaign promise to deport immigrants in the country illegally. But protesters and some Trump supporters have questioned the targeting of those who are not convicted criminals, including in places of employment such as those that sparked last week’s protests in Los Angeles.
On Thursday, Trump acknowledged the impact of the crackdown on sectors such as the hotel industry, which includes his company. The Trump Organization has said Trump’s adult sons are running his business.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote on his social media platform. “Changes are coming!”
Farmers have a legal option for hiring temporary or seasonal labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.
Rollins said Trump is “looking at every potential tool in the toolkit” and pointed to the length of the temporary H-2A visas, adding: “These are changes that need to be made. Most of them ha(ve) to be made through Congress.”
“The president understands that we can’t feed our nation or the world without that labor force, and he’s listening to the farmers on that,” she told CNBC.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Susan Heavey and P.J. Huffstutter; additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Aatreyee Dasgupta, Leah Douglas and Ted Hesson; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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