Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Farmers, cattle ranchers and hotel and restaurant managers sighed in relief last week when President Donald Trump ordered a pause on immigrant raids, disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers from their jobs.
“I finally felt a sense of calm,” said Rebecca Shee, CEO of the American Business Immigration Union.
That rest didn’t last long.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “There will be no safe space for industries that embrace violent criminals or try to make intentional (immigration enforcement) efforts. Workplace enforcement is the basis of our efforts to protect public safety, national security and economic stability.”
Flipflop confuses businesses trying to grasp the government’s actual policies, Shi says, “There’s another fear and concern.”
“That’s not how employees run their business when they’re in this level of stress and trauma,” she said.
On Wednesday, June 18th, 2025, farm workers check the land as workers plow strawberry fields in Oxnard, California (AP Photo/Damiand Bargan)
Farm workers will install strawberry field irrigation pipes in Oxnard, California on Wednesday, June 18th, 2025 (AP Photo/Damiando Bargun)
1 of 2
On Wednesday, June 18th, 2025, farm workers check the land as workers plow strawberry fields in Oxnard, California (AP Photo/Damiand Bargan)
Enlarge
Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants who work illegally in the United States. This is a problem that has been burning his GOP base for a long time. A few weeks ago, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller gave US immigration and customs enforcement an allocation of 3,000 a day to 650 a day in the first five months of Trump’s second term, the crackdown intensified.
Suddenly, the ice seemed everywhere. “We saw ice agents on the farm, pointed attack rifles at the cows, eliminating half of the workforce,” the coalition said on behalf of its 1,700 employers and would help increase legal immigration.
Beverly Izinga, executive director of New Mexico dairy producers, said one ice attack left New Mexico dairy products with only 20 workers in just 20 ice attacks.
Claudio Gonzalez, chef at Izacaya Gazen in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo area, said many of his Hispanic workers have recently been seeking work due to fears they will be targeted by the ice, whether they are legally in the country or not. His restaurant is several blocks away from a collection of federal buildings, including the Ice Detention Center.
“They’re way too scared to get their shifts to work at times,” Gonzalez said. “They feel it’s based on their skin color.”
In some places, the problem is the rumors of ice, not ice. During Washington’s cherry harvest season, many foreign-born workers are leaving the orchard after hearing reports of an imminent migrant attack. One of the operations that normally employ 150 pickers has been reduced to 20. Don’t worry about the fact that there were no signs of ice in the orchard.
“We haven’t heard of the real raid,” said John Foldon, Blue Bird Orchard Manager at the Farm Cooperative in Washington’s Wenatchee River Valley.
Jennie Murray, CEO of the Advocacy Group National Mivirus Forum, said some migrant parents are worried that their workplaces will be attacked and that their children will be transported by the ice while they are at school. They asked themselves, she said: “Would I show up, then my second graders get off the school bus and have no parents raising them? Maybe I shouldn’t show up for work.”
The horror story was communicated to members of his administration, lawmakers in Congress by immigration reform groups like the Advocacy of Business and Shee. Last Thursday, the president posted on the True Social Platform, “The great farmers and people in hotel and leisure businesses have said that our very aggressive policies on immigration have kept long hours of workers away from them, and that it is almost impossible to exchange those jobs.”
It was another case of Trump’s political agenda hitting economic reality. Our unemployment rate is 4.2%, so many businesses are desperate for workers, and immigrants are offering them.
Foreign-born workers accounted for less than 19% of US workers in 2023, but almost 24% of jobs that prepare agriculture, fishing and forestry meals and provide 38% of jobs.
“It’s really clear that those seeking these attacks targeting farms, feeding yards and dairy farms don’t know how the farms are running,” Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden said in a virtual press conference Tuesday.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated in January that undocumented workers account for 13% of U.S. farm jobs and 7% of hospitality businesses such as hotels, restaurants and bars.
The Pew Research Center last year, when 75% of US registered voters, including 59% of Trump supporters, agreed that undocumented immigrants almost fulfill jobs that American citizens don’t want. And the influx of immigrants in 2022 and 2023 allowed the US to overcome the outbreak of inflation without plunging into a recession.
In the past, economists estimated that American employers could add fewer than 100,000 jobs a month without overheating the economy and igniting inflation. However, economist Wendy Edelberg and Brookings facility Tara Watson calculated that monthly employment growth could reach between 160,000 and 200,000 without putting upward pressure on prices due to immigrant arrivals.
Now, Trump’s deportation plans, and the uncertainty around them, are straining businesses and the economy.
“The reality is that most of our industry relies on immigrant labour, skilled and hardworking people who have been part of our workforce for many years. Sudden crackdowns and raids slow down the timeline, increase costs, and make planning more difficult. “We don’t know what the rules will be, or how they will be enforced, and that uncertainty makes running a business that looks forward to the future.”
Adds Douglas Holtz Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Forum think tank.
Jaime Ding is an AP staff writer in Los Angeles. Valerie Gonzalez of McAllen, Texas. Lisa Mascaro and Chris Megarian of Washington. The Associated Press/Report of May Anderson and Matt Sedensky of New York and American journalist Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed to this report.
Original issue: June 19, 2025, 9:57am EDT
