Trump signals deference to farmers on immigrant workers

Source: The Hill

07/04/25 8:20 AM ET


President Trump late Thursday signaled deference to farmers in the U.S. who employ migrants illegally in the country, aiming to shield some of them from his administration’s deportation efforts. “Farmers, look, they know better. They work with them for years. You had cases where, not year, but just even over the years where people have worked for a farm, on a farm for 14, 15 years, and they get thrown out pretty viciously, and we can’t do it.

We gotta work with the farmers, and people that have hotels and leisure properties, too,” Trump told the crowd at the “Salute to America” event in Des Moines, Iowa. The president indicated during his speech, which formally kicked off the yearlong celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, that his administration is working on legislation that would permit some migrants without authorization to stay in the country and keep working on farms.

“We’re going to work with them, and we’re going to work very strong and smart, and we’re going to put you in charge. We’re going to make you responsible, and I think that that’s going to make a lot of people happy,” Trump said, acknowledging, “Serious radical-right people, who I also happen to like a lot, they may not be quite as happy. But they’ll understand.”

Trump then turned toward Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who was in attendance, and asked if “they’ll understand that.” “You’re the one that brought this whole situation up. Brooke Rollins brought it up, and she said, ‘So, we have a little problem. The farmers are losing a lot of people,’ and we figured it out, and we have some great stuff being written,” the president said in Iowa, a state that has more than 86,000 farms. “Let the farmers be responsible.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5385223-trump-farmers-immigration-undocumented-workers/