The Trump administration has put a pause on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite operations in detaining illegal immigrants in the agricultural, hotel, and restaurant industries.
“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” a senior ICE official put out to other authorities, the New York Times reported.
The move from Trump comes as the president has promised to prioritize deporting those in the US illegally who have committed violent crimes, are threats to public safety, and are members of foreign terrorist gangs such as Tren de Aragua.
An email with the guidance was sent out on Thursday to regional ICE officials in the department that handles work site operations as well a criminal investigations. The email added that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries" are good to conduct, but that "noncriminal collaterals," or illegal immigrants in the US who have not committed a crime aside from crossing the border illegally, were not to be detained.
“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told reporters.
Earlier this week on Truth Social, the president took a similar tact when it came to those in the US illegally that are working on farms or in other businesses, "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. 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!"
