Trump yanks brief reprieve for immigrants in agriculture, hotels he said are ‘good, long time workers’

The Trump administration has reopened arrests of immigrant workers at hotels, restaurants and agricultural businesses, backtracking on the brief reprieve they got after President Donald Trump stated they were necessary, good, longtime workers whose jobs were almost “impossible” to replace.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement Tuesday “there will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts.”

Worksite enforcement “remains a cornerstone” of its immigration enforcement efforts, which McLaughlin said “target illegal employment networks that undermine American workers, destabilize labor markets and expose critical infrastructure to exploitation.”

The announcement backpedals on Trump’s statement last week on social media that “changes are coming” after farmers and hotel and leisure business employers had complained 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.”

Just six days ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement paused arrests at worksites in agriculture industries, including fisheries and meatpacking plants, restaurants and hotels, according to an internal policy memo obtained by NBC News last Thursday.

“Effective today, hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/ operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants, and operating hotels,” said the memo from Tatum King, Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office.

But by Tuesday morning, the White house was contradicting that position, saying “anyone present in the United States illegally is at risk of deportation.”

The field memo that announced the pause had noted that it would be difficult for ICE to maintain a monthly arrest quota of 3,000 that the administration had directed field offices to achieve.

“We acknowledge that by taking this off the table, that we are eliminating a significant # of potential targets,” King wrote.

Asked about the change during a gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from the G7 summit, Trump said: “We’re going to look everywhere. But I think the biggest problem is the inner cities.” He repeated campaign rhetoric, blaming former President Joe Biden and saying he let prisoners, gang members, drug dealers and the “mentally insane” into the country.

Trump said cities are where “the really bad ones are, the murderers.”

“We’re going to get them out,” Trump said. “There are for more in the inner cities, Democrat-run cities, sadly, and I’m just giving you, there’s far more in there than you have on a farm or someplace.”