President Trump has made a strategic pivot in immigration enforcement, ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to halt workplace raids on agriculture, hotel, and restaurant industries—a move aimed at protecting key sectors of the American economy while continuing to focus on criminal illegal aliens.
The shift, confirmed by NewsNation on Saturday, follows a Thursday post from President Trump on Truth Social, where he addressed concerns from farmers and hospitality business owners who’ve been struggling to replace long-time workers caught up in recent ICE operations.
“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… This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!” Trump wrote.
The directive is now official. According to an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, Tatum King, a senior ICE official, told regional leaders:
“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants, and operating hotels.”
King acknowledged that this policy change will likely lead to fewer overall deportations, admitting:
“We acknowledge that by taking this off the table, that we are eliminating a significant # of potential targets.”
However, the memo made clear that ICE will still pursue serious criminal investigations, including cases involving human trafficking, money laundering, and drug smuggling in these industries. Crucially, King instructed agents not to arrest “noncriminal collaterals”—that is, individuals who are illegally in the U.S. but haven’t committed any additional crimes.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed its alignment with the president’s directive.
“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,” said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
This move comes amid a national wave of unrest and violent protests in states like California, where ICE raids targeting low-level workers have sparked massive backlash.
Bottom line: President Trump is showing what leadership with common sense looks like. He’s still laser-focused on removing criminals and threats, but he’s not going to torpedo America’s agriculture and hospitality industries in the process. That’s America First in action.
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