Trump's Immigration Enforcement Retreat: A Critical Juncture

President Donald Trump's MAGA base was troubled, and understandably so. After campaigning vigorously on initiating the largest deportation operation in American history, the president spoke of pulling back from the pledge that, in large part, helped elect him.

Trump's administration ordered immigration officials to pause raids on farms, hotels, restaurants, and meatpacking plants, according to knowledgeable insiders. In a social media post, President Trump said agriculture leaders and hospitality businesses were concerned the administration's far-reaching immigration enforcement was taking away "very good, long-time workers." The pause would have overridden a late-May demand by top White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for more aggressive sweeps that called for 3,000 daily arrests of illegal aliens. The new presidential directive still allowed for investigations into serious crimes such as human, drug, and sex trafficking, The New York Times first reported.

The president's millions of supporters were stunned that he could completely abandon—without precedent, even among immigration expansionists like George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden—his commitment by publicly announcing that he would not enforce immigration law against certain employment sectors: agriculture, restaurants, and meatpackers, which consistently hire the most illegal immigrants. For on-the-fence voters who suspect that, in his heart, President Trump is an immigration expansionist, his course reversal offered proof. And his subsequent reversal of his original reversal only adds confusion. Shortly after President Trump announced his hands off policy for the largest illegal alien employers, the White House let it be known that it would return to its enforcement business as usual. Illegal aliens, regardless of their trade, are subject to removal.

The current immigration crisis is rooted in 60 years of ineffective federal governance, and while President Trump has a chance to unburden the nation of the sovereignty-destroying albatross, mass deportation may not be his best path forward. With approximately 20 million illegal immigrants aliens present, his priority should be removing convicted criminals—the so-called worst of the worst—while simultaneously making it difficult to hire illegal aliens and cleaning up the messes previous administrations left behind.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, Congress has emphasized expanding immigration while weakening interior enforcement. Sanctuary cities, followed by sanctuary states, attracted illegal aliens to the U.S., where they knew they could find off-the-books employment. When employers addicted to cheap labor like Mohawk Industries and Zirkle Fruit Company were caught employing illegal aliens, the judicial system handed down minimal fines without jail sentences, even though hiring illegal aliens is a federal felony.

In 1986, Republican Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which promised amnesty in exchange for enforcement. The administration delivered amnesty but ignored enforcement. Democratic President Jimmy Carter's Refugee Act of 1980 brought growing demand from activists for more refugees from countries often hostile to the U.S. In Minneapolis, for example, Somali criminal elements perpetrated violent crimes against rival gangs and U.S. citizens.

Republican George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which established new H employment categories like the H-1B, a visa that has led to displacement of hundreds of thousands of U.S. IT workers. Employment-related immigration nearly tripled as the number of annual employment visas issued increased from 54,000 to 140,000. 41’s law also provided for the admission of immigrants from underrepresented countries to increase diversity among foreign-born nationals. Moreover, Bush’s act created Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for foreign nationals whose home countries are considered too dangerous for them to return. The TPS list has expanded to 17 and includes Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and other America-hating countries. The 1990 law also provided for the admission of immigrants from underrepresented countries to increase diversity among foreign-born nationals arriving in the U.S. An annual Visa Lottery admits 55,000 foreign nationals completely at random and puts them on a citizenship path which will enable them to petition their families from abroad and have U.S. citizen children.

The 1990 Act also mandated an immigration study which would be conducted by U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (D-Texas). Known as the Jordan Commission, the congresswoman summarized her findings after a seven-year study: "Credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave." Congress did not act on Jordan's enforcement recommendations but instead the Immigration Act of 1990 helped permit the entry of 20 million foreign nationals over the next two decades, the largest number recorded in a 20-year period since the nation’s founding.

George W. Bush, through his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, created the Optional Practical Training program available to F-1 foreign students who have completed their academic science, technology, engineering, and math studies (STEM). The program, never congressionally authorized, appeals to employers because the international workers are exempt from Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. OPT is the nation's largest work program for foreign nationals with about 250,000 actively employed.

President Barack Obama introduced, via executive order, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Like OPT, DACA was never congressionally approved. Recipients received deportation protection, Social Security numbers, and work permits renewable every two years. About 533,000 have been approved for the program. Obama also authorized, again by executive order, work permits for H-1B spouses who were granted H-4 visas. The spouses were previously banned from U.S. employment.

Through their immigration missteps, previous administrations have flooded the labor market and created challenges for American workers. Luckily, President Trump had second thoughts about his proposed amnesty for farm and hospitality workers; amnesty leads to more amnesty.

Immediate Steps Forward

Here are the steps the president must take immediately to address the immigration muddle:

Mandatory E-Verify---NOW! No reasonable argument can be made against a proven program that ensures only citizens and legally present immigrants can obtain and hold jobs once hired. If necessary, President Trump could mandate E-Verify by executive order.

Agricultural modernization. The agriculture industry must embrace 21st-century mechanization. Machines that can harvest even delicate crops like blueberries have been developed, proven effective, and can operate around the clock.

End OPT and the H-4 visa. If an executive order can create these programs and visas, an executive order can end them. The order will likely be challenged in court, but the administration must maintain its course.

Address labor shortages through market solutions. The solution to labor shortages in the hospitality industry is higher wages—the historic remedy. Restaurants in Washington D.C., Cape Cod hotels, and Beverly Hills eateries must offer competitive wages, and worker scarcity will diminish. If necessary, establishments can raise prices; well-heeled clientele can afford the extra cost. Claims that owners cannot find employees are unconvincing. Vacation spots like Cape Cod are surrounded by colleges and universities with students who want and need summer jobs. Any establishment that cannot exist without exploiting illegal alien workers should reconsider its business model.

A Critical Moment

National support for vigorous immigration enforcement has never been stronger. The public is frustrated with the previous administration's open border policies and minimal interior enforcement that allowed various criminal elements to operate freely. For President Trump, this is a critical juncture that demands decisive, drastic action.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org