Tuesday, July 1, 2025 - US President Donald Trump says he’s working on a plan to create a temporary visa program for undocumented immigrants employed in industries like farming and hospitality.
In a recent interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning
Futures,” Trump said the goal is to give these workers a form of legal status
that ensures they pay taxes and allows farmers to retain trusted employees,
instead of losing them to immigration raids.
“We’re
working on it right now,” Trump told Fox News. “We’re going to work it so that
there’s 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.”
Trump described scenes where immigration officers have
entered farms and detained workers who had been employed there for 15 or 20
years — people he said were “good” but had “possibly come in incorrectly.” He
argued that it was unfair to destroy farmers’ livelihoods by removing the very
people who kept their operations running.
“The farmer
knows. He’s not going to hire a murderer,” Trump said. “When you go into a farm
and he’s had somebody working with him for nine years doing this hard work, and
you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away. It’s a
problem.”
The Department of Homeland Security, however, maintained its
tough stance in a statement repeated from earlier this month. “The President
has been incredibly clear.
There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor
violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” the statement
said. DHS added that worksite enforcement remains key to protecting public
safety, national security and the economy.
The idea marks another shift in how Trump’s team is
approaching undocumented workers, especially in agriculture and hospitality.
Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement temporarily paused
worksite arrests in the farming, restaurant, and hotel sectors — responding to
concerns from employers who said they were losing reliable long-time workers.
But days later, that pause was lifted, and arrests resumed.
Trump himself has acknowledged the dilemma, posting on Truth
Social that farmers and hotel owners told him immigration crackdowns were
“taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being
almost impossible to replace.” He promised, “We must protect our Farmers…
changes are coming.”
Back in April, Trump floated another idea: allowing
undocumented workers employed on farms and in hotels to leave the country and
return legally. Administration officials have also indicated he’s interested in
strengthening the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, which let employers hire foreign
workers temporarily.
While the White House has not released more details on the
proposed temporary pass, Trump’s comments signal a possible softening for
specific industries that heavily rely on immigrant labor — even as he continues
to insist that anyone in the country illegally remains at risk of deportation.
For now, both workers and employers are watching closely to
see if Trump’s words will turn into an actual policy that balances enforcement
with the economic realities faced by farms and hotels across the country.
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