A new guidance by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), lobbied for by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to the president last week, has led to a reversal of raids on ag operations that hired illegal immigrant labor.
How ICE enforces its crackdown on illegal labor – a top goal under President Donald Trump since his inauguration – without impacting agriculture is still uncertain for the long term. But Trump appears to be backing off for now.
Rollins called Trump on June 11, the day after ICE raided Glenn Valley Foods meat-packing plant in Omaha, Nebraska, arresting 76 workers, according to reporting by The New York Times. Rollins told Trump about the adverse impact ag operations would suffer by losing their dependable immigrant workforce from law enforcement.
Rollins’ lobbying and Trump's reversal led to a new ICE guidance issued Thursday, June 12, from senior ICE official Tatum King to the agency’s regional officials who conduct work site inspections.
“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat-packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” read the email, confirmed by The New York Times. The memo additionally said probes that find “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” However arrest of “noncriminal collaterals” was restricted.
Trump reinforced the fact in a post made Thursday on his social media platform.
“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,” he wrote. Similar statements were made by the president in a White House press conference appearance Thursday.
The change in tone after last week’s raids was reinforced by Rollins on Friday, June 13, during her appearance before the House Ag Committee. A number of committee members asked why ICE was focusing on ag operations, given the difficulty they face in maintaining dependable workers on farms, ranches and packing plants.
“This was one of the issues that we spoke about,” Rollins said of her talks with Trump. “This president's commitment to ensuring that all laws are followed remains paramount. But also combining that with understanding the significant challenges to our producers in finding the labor that is necessary to produce not only for their farms, [and] to be able to basically stay in business, but also to your point, this is much bigger than that.
“This is a national security issue and the moment that America is not able to feed ourselves any longer, that is the moment that we are no longer the superpower, the preeminent superpower, in the world. So that's how very seriously I take this.”
Glenn Valley Foods President Chad Hartmann told Reuters news service his plant lost 70% of its labor in the raid, and told Politico his company had been using E-Verify, a federal database used to check legal status of immigrants.
“My biggest issue is: Why us?” Hartmann told Politico. “We do everything by the book.
“This is your system, run by the government. And you’re raiding me because your system is broken?”
Other raids conducted last week included Boskovich Farms in Oxnard, California; Outlook Dairy Farms, Covington, New Mexico; and other farms in Fresno and Tulare counties of California.
The raids on U.S. home improvement stores and garment factories in Los Angeles, followed by more around the country, resulted after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller urged ICE in a May 21 meeting to increase ICE arrests of immigrants, according to an Axios news report.
In the case of Glenn Valley’s raid in Nebraska, Omaha police Chief Todd Schmaderer said in a press conference that the number of agencies involved included nine other federal agencies, as well as Nebraska State Patrol and the local sheriff’s department.
Criticism of the raids became more bipartisan after House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn "G.T." Thompson (R-Georgia), commented, “They need to knock it off,” to reporters Thursday. “Let's go after the criminals and give us time to put processes in place so we don’t disrupt the food supply chain.”
The ICE memo from Thursday indicated total arrests as mandated by the administration could see a significant drop as a result of the policy. “We acknowledge that by taking this off the table, that we are eliminating a significant [number] of potential targets,” King added.
In her testimony Friday before the House Ag Committee, Rollins said farmers and ranchers need to count on reliable labor and that Trump was “hyperfocused on understanding” the challenges at hand.
“There is a recognition that there has to be a balance,” she said. “He remains committed to ensuring that no laws are broken … while realizing that our agriculture community, specifically our dairy farmers, a lot of our row croppers and our specialty crops, that there is a massive labor issue that we have to work to solve in partnership with Congress.”
In a question about the need for reform to the H2A worker visa program, and whether a bipartisan committee bill drafted earlier would work, Rollins said she and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer are on board with the collaboration, but said it’s necessary for lawmakers to pass a bill.
“Clearly, the real reform has to come from Congress,” Rollins said.
Articles from The New York Times, Axios, Politico, Reuters and the Omaha World-Herald all contributed to this report.
