President Donald Trump signaled on Thursday that “changes are coming” to his immigration policy, noting that farmers as well as hotel and leisure businesses have complained about his “very aggressive” crackdown on illegal immigrants.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said that he’s heard from farmers and people in the hotel industry who are concerned about the administration’s immigration crackdown “taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” Trump added that the United States must deport criminals while also protecting farmers.
“In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!” Trump added.
Later on Thursday, Trump told reporters at the White House that a new order on certain immigration enforcement will be issued “pretty soon.”
“Farmers are being hurt badly. You know, they have very good workers who have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great, and we’re going to have to do something about that,” he said. “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back … and you know what’s going to happen, what is happening, they get rid of some of their people … and they end up hiring the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else.”
Trump’s shift comes as his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area, including detaining suspected illegal immigrants on the street, at businesses, and on farms. ICE agents were spotted chasing down and detaining farm workers in Ventura County, California, earlier this week.
ICE agents arrived at produce farms in Ventura County at 6am Tuesday and were seen chasing workers to detain them. Full story: https://t.co/7lofZTlbj8 pic.twitter.com/Sh5WTud7lc
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) June 11, 2025
The White House said on Wednesday that since last week, 330 suspected illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area have been detained, 113 of whom had past criminal convictions.
As immigration agents carried out the president’s deportation agenda in California, anti-ICE protests and riots broke out in Los Angeles last weekend. Joining the demonstrations were members of Unite Here Local 11, a local labor union that represents workers in the hotel, food, and casino industries. The organization, which is part of a local leftist coalition that has pushed anti-police talking points and given tips for how to respond to ICE agents, condemned the law enforcement response to the riots.
Trump’s mass deportation operation has been celebrated by most Republicans and conservatives, but has concerned some farmers and business owners who work in industries that have relied on hiring illegal immigrant workers. In January, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau urged Trump to pursue a secure border without going after illegal immigrants who have worked on the state’s many dairy farms “for years.”
In April, Trump addressed some of these concerns during a Cabinet meeting, saying, “We are also going to work with farmers. If they have strong recommendations for their farms for certain people, we’re going to let them stay in for a while. … We have to take care of our farmers, our hotels and, you know, the various places where they need the people.”
The president added that employers could lobby the government for their illegal immigrant workers to be allowed to remain in the country.
“So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard,” Trump said. “We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers.”
Trump’s post on Thursday was met with backlash among some conservatives who argued that it would be a step back from what the president initially promised to do on the campaign trail. Daily Wire host Matt Walsh wrote on X, “Hell no. We can’t tolerate this.”
“Employers who knowingly rely on illegal immigrant labor should be in prison,” he added. “Instead we’re going to back off of immigration enforcement for their sake?”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Trump’s post.