ICE: Targeting essential workers

Federal agents at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York City

"Key industries rely heavily on workers living in the U.S. illegally."

(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

published 23 June 2025

Well, that didn't last long, said William Kristol in The Bulwark. Just days after President Trump declared an "immigration-enforcement truce"— by calling on ICE not to seize undocumented migrants employed by "our great farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business"—his administration told ICE agents to "disregard all that." In an email outlining the "about-face on the about-face," Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin told staffers there would be "no safe spaces" for any industry that hired undocumented workers. ICE has ramped up raids on farms, restaurants, and meat-packing plants in recent weeks to meet the administration's target of 3,000 migrant arrests a day, said Carol D. Leonnig in The Washington Post. Agriculture and hospitality executives lobbied Trump to lower that quota—set by White House aide and hard-line immigration foe Stephen Miller—leading to the brief moratorium on some workplace raids. But the White House soon had second thoughts, and Trump's plan to enact "the largest domestic deportation operation in history" was back on course.

That push "has slammed into an economic reality," said Arian Campo-Flores in The Wall Street Journal: "Key industries rely heavily on workers living in the U.S. illegally." Undocumented migrants make up at least 17% of the workforce in crop production, 16% in animal slaughter and meat-packing, and 13% in construction. Employers across the country say they've lost hardworking employees in raids and that other undocumented workers are staying home out of fear of being snatched by ICE. About 75 meat processors were detained during a raid at Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha earlier this month; the plant is now operating at 20% of capacity. CEO Gary Rohwer said immigrant workers were vital to the business. "Without them, there wouldn't be an industry."

Indiscriminate ICE raids might be "nearing the boundaries of what most Americans will tolerate," said Michael Warren in The Dispatch. While 55% agree with Trump's deportation goal, a CBS News/ YouGov poll found, 56% disliked the administration's "sloppy, imprecise, and careless" tactics. But there's no slowing the deportation machine, said Ed Kilgore in NYMag.com. In a declaration of "partisan war," Trump promised this week to intensify ICE operations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, claiming the majority-Democrat cities "use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base." Such raids will likely further erode his popularity, but hey, "Stephen Miller has quotas to meet."