Credit Image: © Carlos A. Moreno/ZUMA Press Wire
For the first time in more than 50 years, more immigrants may leave the United States than enter. The economy is slowing, but the unemployment rate is steady because the number of foreign-born workers is declining. According to data from the Department of Labor, there are a million fewer foreign-born workers since March.
As the labor supply tightens, wages rise. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says blue-collar wages have increased by 1.7 percent in the administration’s first five months, a reversal of a decline of 1.7 percent under President Biden. Despite speculation that tariffs would increase inflation, the Consumer Price Index is down about 20 percent since the inauguration, though there is no guarantee this will continue.
The Trump Administration has used high-profile immigration raids and deportations to encourage illegals to leave voluntarily. The Department of Homeland Security is offering self-deporters $1,000 plus a travel stipend, as well as the possibility of a legal return someday. “Project Homecoming” may seem soft because it offers illegals a free trip home, but it is far cheaper than the estimated average $17,000 it costs to catch and deport illegals. “Get your affairs in order,” warned White House border czar Tom Homan in late April. “If you’re in the country illegally, work with ICE, go to CBP One Home app, and leave on your own.”
We enforce federal immigration law, and you need to know:
If ICE removes you, you may never be allowed back.
If you self-deport now, you may be able to return as an immigrant or visitor someday — the legal way.
Learn more: https://t.co/ZJmz9Kl8Cz pic.twitter.com/SXI3ACej5E
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) June 14, 2025
Yet the administration blinked recently. Last week, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations employee Tatum King told field agents to stop raiding farms, restaurants, and hotels. President Trump wrote on Truth Social:
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. . . . Changes are coming!
Polls suggest the public wants this. In March, Pew found almost universal support for deporting violent criminal illegals and majority support for deporting nonviolent criminals. Over 40 percent would deport all who came in the last four years, but only 32 percent want every illegal booted. A new poll from Pew found just 31 percent support across-the-board deportation, with a majority believing that there should be a way for vetted illegals to stay. This suggests Americans don’t have the stomach for mass deportations.
There is a party split. Republicans overwhelmingly want state and local police to help the feds, with solid majorities favoring more money for deportations, ending Temporary Protected Status, and suspending asylum applications. Majorities of Democrats oppose these policies. If President Trump waffles on deportations, he could lose his base. He will need it, especially if he is willing to risk war with Iran. Within the Republican Party, the battle for mass deportations has been won.
Maybe this is why the White House dramatically went back to raiding farms and hotels. On Monday morning, ICE told agents to keep raiding worksites. DHS also said there will be no “safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposefully try to undermine ICE’s efforts.” According to Goldman Sachs, about 20 percent of the agriculture, food processing, and construction workforce are illegals.
The Republican party is a coalition, and businesses that want cheap labor will always oppose immigration law enforcement, even in deep red states. The president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives said:
We are deeply concerned with reports that the Department of Homeland Security has issued new guidance reversing course on last week’s actions and urging a resumption of enforcement actions on farms and other agribusinesses. This directly contradicts the commitments made by President Trump to America’s farmers and ranchers, first in April and again last week.
The head of the American Farm Bureau Federation said:
President Trump recently emphasized agriculture faces unique circumstances that warrant a different approach to enforcement practices. Agriculture is inherently labor intensive . . . .
Unfortunately, domestic workers do not apply for farm jobs, despite aggressive hiring efforts.
There is already an H-2A visa for Temporary Agricultural Workers, and more visas have been issued every year since 2019. There is no limit on their potential number, though some farmers complain the regulations on working conditions and demonstrating no Americans can do the work are too rigorous.
That’s probably because legal residents will do those jobs. Meatpacking is another industry in which Americans allegedly won’t work. Just a few days ago, 76 illegals were arrested in a large workplace raid at Glenn Valley Foods in Nebraska. NBC ran a sob story, with the company president mourning the loss of workers he called “family members.” However, even this story admitted that prospective workers besieged the company just after the raid. Increased wages and firm enforcement could make these jobs attractive to Americans.
President Trump is back to taking a firm stance:
ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.
In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. . . . You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland!
However, some in the heartland want Mr. Trump to retreat. Here is Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska:
I applaud @potus’s decision to pull back ICE operations from targeting farms and packing plants. The food processing chain is very fragile and important to Nebraska’s economy. I support our ICE agents who are trying to protect our country.https://t.co/KVUTuTZsCR
— Rep. Don Bacon
(@RepDonBacon) June 15, 2025
The Washington Post also reports pressure from within the GOP:
Some Republican lawmakers maintain cautious optimism that they can push the president and Congress on a solution that allows the workforce crucial to the GOP’s base to remain in the country.
At a news conference Tuesday hosted by the American Business Immigration Coalition, a group of employers that has lobbied heavily on Capitol Hill in recent weeks, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, praised Trump and said business leaders should not be disheartened by the setback.
The only long-term solution is to punish employers that knowingly hire illegals. There must be both fear and consistency. And public perception is as important as enforcement.
Early in the Great Depression, widely publicized raids led to about 80,000 deportations, but the impact was much bigger. Politico writes:
The result: large-scale self-deportation. Many Mexicans, including U.S.-born people of Mexican descent, elected to leave the country. In Los Angeles, by 1935, one-third of its Chicano population had disappeared. Nationwide, it’s estimated that up to 60 percent of those who left were actually American citizens.
During Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback, just a few hundred thousand people were deported, but many more left on their own:
The INS declared the operation a success, claiming to have deported more than a million people. But those deportation numbers were greatly exaggerated . . . . The majority of the deportations were actually voluntary departures, where many Mexicans left the country on their own after being apprehended by the INS.
Similar to the Mexican repatriation of the 30’s, the biggest impact of “Operation Wetback” was the fear it created. “It was largely a publicity stunt, and they used terror to try to scare people out of the country through roadblocks and raids that were covered by the press,” [UCLA professor Kitty] Lytle-Hernández says.
It was a deeply-racially targeted campaign grounded in racial profiling of people perceived to be of Mexican descent, according to Lytle-Hernández, adding, “To me, it’s all racism.”
Racism? One man’s racism is another man’s will to victory. The recent anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles confirm that many Mexicans care nothing for American sovereignty, and that there is a renewed “Reconquista” movement
The President’s budget, now in the Senate, includes a tax on remittances and more money for ICE. What the Supreme Court rules on birthright citizenship will be crucial; unless that’s eliminated, no guest worker program makes sense.
Immigration control has two equally important parts: (1) Policy. (2) The perception that illegals are being driven out, that no jobs are safe for them, and that businesses who hire them will suffer labor disruptions if not sanctions. Mr. Trump’s brief retreat was a catastrophe; fortunately, he reversed course. There must be no more mixed messages. If illegals think they can outlast Mr. Trump’s resolve, they will stay. If they think they will be deported, they will leave.
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