President Donald Trump on Thursday admitted his immigration crackdown is hurting farms and hotels that rely heavily on undocumented immigrants for low-wage labor.
As immigration protests spread from Los Angeles to other cities, Trump said he would consider tweaking his harsh mass deportation policy to spare the crucial agriculture and hospitality industries.
“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,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the criminals out of the USA. Changes are coming.”
Trump: We can't take farmers and take their people and send them back because they don't have what they are supposed to have… You are supposed to throw them out? You know what happens? They end up hiring the criminals that have come in, murderers pic.twitter.com/PAJ7J5NLYf
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 12, 2025
Trump rarely admits mistakes, especially on a signature policy issue like his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, who are key workers in industries like agriculture and hospitality, along with food processing and restaurants.
It’s not clear what immigration or enforcement changes Trump might consider.
Democrats wasted little time calling out Trump as a hypocrite on immigration.
“Turns out, chasing hard working people through ranches and farms and snatching women and children off the streets is not good policy,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted.
In April, Trump suggested at a cabinet meeting that undocumented farm and hotel workers should be given permission to live and work in the U.S. if they fulfill certain conditions.
There have been no follow-up proposals since. His Republican allies have repeatedly rejected comprehensive immigration reform efforts, some of which include provisions to allow undocumented immigrants to work in the U.S. or a path to citizenship, which they deride as “amnesty for illegals.”
Trump and administration officials have repeated vowed to escalate mass deportations, even as critics and economists point out the critical role undocumented immigrants play in the U.S. economy.
About 40% of U.S. farmworkers are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department. At least 1.1 million undocumented people work in the hospitality industry, which includes hotels and restaurants — about 31% of the workforce, according to estimates from an immigration advocacy group.
Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has recently ramped up efforts to snare suspected undocumented immigrants at workplaces, schools and even courthouses as the White House pushes to increase the number of deportations.
Raids on places where workers gather to seek employment, like parking lots of home improvement stores, sparked the protests in Los Angeles last week. Trump has escalated the confrontation by ordering National Guard troops and even Marines into the fray.
Immigrant rights groups have planned protests for Saturday in cities across the country, including Los Angeles and New York.
The rallies will coincide with Trump’s military parade in Washington D.C., which is billed as a 250th anniversary party for the U.S. Army but also coincides with the president’s 79th birthday.
