Conservatives across the country are watching closely to see whether President Donald Trump grants amnesty to illegal aliens employed in certain industries. The administration’s messaging on this matter has been somewhat contradictory, giving rise to confusion and understandable outrage among Trump’s most diehard supporters.
The White House must tread carefully here. If Trump shields entire categories of illegals from deportation, it will constitute a betrayal of one of his central campaign promises.
Trump’s 2024 victory was, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest political comeback in history. And it was a political comeback fueled by the issue of illegal immigration. Under Biden, nearly 10 million illegals entered the country. Elect me, Trump told us on the campaign trail, and I’ll kick out the bums.
Deporting every illegal in America is no small order. But so far, the Trump administration has demonstrated a commitment to fulfilling this campaign promise. According to border czar Tom Homan, the administration has already deported roughly 200,000 people since Trump took office. And that’s not all. Analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that around one million illegals have self-deported as well.
Although this is a good start, it isn’t enough. Impatience has turned to anger for some conservatives, who expected a quicker deportation rate. If you fall into that category, then you’re in good company—Trump, too, is reported to have expressed outrage about the numbers. However, deportations, especially those conducted on a large scale, are not only logistically challenging but also incredibly expensive. Removing every illegal from America first requires increased funding from Congress.
The president managed to make that happen. On Independence Day, he signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included the single greatest increase in immigration enforcement funding in American history. While not perfect, the bill provides around $170 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection, and state and local governments to achieve the administration’s goal of mass deportations. Significant funding will go toward the expansion of ICE’s detention system, the hiring of tens of thousands of new immigration enforcement personnel, and new equipment and facilities.
Simply put, Trump has supercharged U.S. immigration enforcement. We should be grateful for that. To what extent the funding will increase the deportation numbers remains to be seen; at the very least, we can expect them to improve. But if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to have the opposite effect, it’s shielding large categories of illegals from deportation.
The president first floated such a carveout in April. During a cabinet meeting, Trump proposed protections for illegals working in certain industries:
We’re going to work with farmers that, if they have strong recommendations for their farms, for certain people, that we’re going to let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process, a legal process. We have to take care of our farmers and hotels and various places where they need the people.
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.
Trump’s call in April for shielding illegals went largely unnoticed, notwithstanding some online outrage. Perhaps surmising that the base was fine with deportation carveouts, Trump announced another one earlier this month on Truth Social:
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. In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!
This time, however, the president’s proposal was met with vocal opposition by top supporters. In the following days, confusion ensued as the mainstream media published conflicting information. The Washington Post reported that ICE officials were unaware of any policy changes. The New York Times cited other government officials who said that a directive indeed went out shielding farms, restaurants, and hotels from immigration enforcement. Yet farm raids continued. The Washington Post reported that ICE had reversed guidance “that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants” after the White House took issue with the policy. Homan assured the public last Thursday that worksite raids would continue. The amnesty scare, it seemed, was over.
That relief proved short-lived, as the following day Trump renewed his call for the protections:
We’re looking at doing something where, in the case of good reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility because we can’t put the farms out of business.
Trump, speaking with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo last month, laid out his reasons for considering such a policy:
I don’t back away. What I do have, 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 are 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.
In early July, Trump, speaking at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, renewed his call for this carveout. “We’re working on legislation right now,” he told the lively crowd.
As to what that legislation might entail, your guess is as good as mine.
An Axios report from two weeks ago may shed light on what the administration is cooking up. According to the report, the Department of Labor created the Office of Immigration Policy, whose purpose is to fast-track temporary worker visas. Immigration law prevents undocumented workers from applying for visas, so prospective workers would be required to apply from their home countries.
Would this qualify as amnesty? That depends on whom you ask. According to a senior administration official, the answer is no. “This is not amnesty,” the unnamed official told Axios. “No one who is illegally here is being given a pathway to citizenship or residency.” Trump and other key administration officials, including agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins, have insisted that what they’re working on will not include amnesty.
These assurances have done little to placate immigration hardliners. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, believes that the administration is working on some form of amnesty. “Any time someone says, ‘This isn’t an amnesty because…’ then it’s an amnesty,” Krikorian told Axios. “If an illegal alien gets to stay, that’s an amnesty.”
Without knowing the specifics, we cannot say whether the coming legislation would entail amnesty. Even without amnesty, there are still possibilities sure to displease some in the MAGA movement. Let’s consider a few possible scenarios.
In the worst one, the president really does implement some form of amnesty. Anywhere from a few hundred thousand to millions of illegals working in agriculture or hospitality are spared deportation. Trump and other administration officials swear that it isn’t amnesty—that these illegals are going to be deported last, and that they are not receiving a pathway to citizenship. But sooner or later, 2029 comes around and, lo and behold, they’re still there.
In a slightly better (but still unideal) scenario, Trump doesn’t shield illegals from deportation but instead expands the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, allowing hundreds of thousands of ostensibly temporary workers into America. This scenario, though not amnesty, would not be without consequence for American workers forced to compete with these temporary workers.
If we’re lucky, Trump figures out a way to placate the farmers and business owners lobbying the administration to protect their illegal workforce without providing some form of amnesty or massively increasing temporary work visas.
Of these three scenarios, something resembling the second seems the most probable. The newly created Office of Immigration Policy is already fast-tracking visa applications. The question then is whether the administration will cave and direct ICE to overlook illegals working in certain industries.
Regardless of the specifics, Trump is wading into dangerous waters. Granting amnesty would constitute an egregious betrayal of the voters who reelected him. The extent of that betrayal would depend on the numbers. But with millions of illegals working in agriculture, restaurants, and hospitality, that number could be quite high.
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The American people gave Trump a historic mandate to deport every illegal immigrant. Even amid talk of carveouts, Trump has repeatedly affirmed his commitment to this goal and promised no amnesty. Deviation from this would not just betray the American people, it would permanently tarnish Trump’s legacy, ensuring future generations remember him as yet another president who failed to keep his word.
Trump cares deeply about the American people and his legacy. I trust he will ultimately make the right decision. In the meantime, however, Trump supporters must boisterously oppose any form of amnesty.
President Trump promised to deport them all. That is exactly what he must do.
