Who's Getting ICEd Today?
Looks like another game of 'Who was the last person Trump talked to?'
In another reassuring reminder that Donald Trump knows what’s going on around him and isn’t simply a stick puppet operated by Stephen Miller, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security on Monday told everyone working in immigration that they should keep raiding work sites in agriculture and the food and hospitality industries, and to please disregard DHS’s order last Thursday to hold off on such raids, OK? For all we know, DHS agents were probably told that nothing had actually changed, and that they had all imagined the orders from Thursday because that never happened, right?
The Washington Post reported last night (gift link) that
Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including its Homeland Security Investigations division, told agency leaders in a call Monday that agents must continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels and restaurants, according to two people familiar with the call. The new instructions were shared in an 11 a.m. call to representatives from 30 field offices across the country.
The reversal in policy came after an email from DHS told agents to “hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.” We can only assume the unnamed official who sent that email has been sacked, or possibly promoted.
Hours before that order on Thursday, Trump said on his fake Twitter replacement (archive link) that the deportations were bad for business, and that some kind of changes were coming, but that ultimately it was Joe Biden’s fault because Biden singlehandedly invented the practice of American companies hiring undocumented workers, but Trump would make it all better!
Apparently the last person Trump talked to sometime Thursday said something about how the raids were hurting business, but then on Monday the last person Trump talked to was Stephen Miller, who clearly set Trump straight on what Trump actually thinks.
Politico reports that Trump’s temporary shift against deporting some undocumented workers came after he talked to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins,
who for months, alongside Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, has said the administration is working on a short-term fix for migrant labor. That reform involves the controversial H-2A visa program, which allows agriculture employers to hire seasonal labor but is viewed as exploitative by labor rights groups.
But Rollins twote on Sunday (archive link) that heck no, she wants ALL ILLEGALS DEPORTED, so we will only have legals doing gruntwork! But also she said that we can’t allow food shortages, so we’ll deport all the ILLEGALS, magic will happen, and we will soon have a “stable and LEGAL agricultural workforce.”
Ah, but Rollins didn’t fool the MAGA Flying Monkeys of Twitter with that talk, which still sounded to them like she said deporting everyone could wait while the US ramps more guest worker visa. Besides, a visa program would still allow ILLEGALS into the US, because these fuckheads genuinely believe that even guest workers with visas are actually ILLEGAL, and therefore cheating. They’re not white and American, now are they? Ergo, ILLEGALS!
Most of the MAGAs screaming at Rollins also accused her of being a mouthpiece for corporate interests, as if the Cabinet of Billionaires includes anyone else.
So yeah, given the choice, they demand food shortages and higher prices, which will be the fault of Obama and Biden anyway. Better than knowing there are people in California lettuce fields speaking Spanish and probably spraying chemtrails too.
The brief pause — if any — in deportations was quickly shut down by Stephen Miller and his acolytes, who also prefer inflation and food shortages to leaving anyone not deported, no matter how much business interests who depend on hiring migrants may complain.
No, nobody is talking about arresting those who hire undocumented workers, don’t be silly. That would be bad for business.
Politico, which posted its story before last night’s reversal, reports that business interests really truly believed Trump wouldn’t deport their workers, because didn’t they have an understanding?
For months, farmers and ranchers across the United States operated with a cautious understanding that Trump’s deportation spree would not touch their workforce, with some lawmakers saying the White House had promised to spare the industry from aggressive enforcement — until last week.
House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) said the raids on agriculture producers were “just wrong,” and suggested the president agrees — but it “must be somebody a little lower in the food chain that’s making those mistakes.”
“They need to knock it off,” Thompson told reporters Thursday. “Let’s go after the criminals and give us time to put processes in place so we don’t disrupt the food supply chain.”
Also, we must note that the president of the American Farm Bureau, who issued a statement saying he looked forward to working with Trump “on solutions that ensure continuity in the food supply in the short term,” is a person named “Zippy Duvall,” which we can only assume is yet more evidence that the simulation we all live in is glitching again.
For now, it seems that Miller and the deport-everyone faction have triumphed over the traditional Republicans who support demonizing migrants but only deporting other companies’ workers, not their own. Sunday night, Trump appeared to split the difference a little, demanding that ICE concentrate on achieving “the largest Mass Deportation Operation of Illegal Aliens in History,” but insisting that the raids be focused on raids in “America’s largest Cities,” specifically those in blue states, because that way he can hate on immigrants, cities, and Democrats at the same time.
Trump lied, yet again, that evil Democrats “use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens,” which is why he wants raids to focus on “sanctuary cities.” Whether that means any reprieve from ICE raids on farms and food processing plants in red states remains to be seen; Trump may simply insist those businesses were in Democrat-run cities and call it a day.
[WaPo (gift link) / Politico / CNN / CBS News]
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"business interests really truly believed Trump wouldn’t deport their workers, because didn’t they have an understanding?"
And that naiveté, ladies & gentlemen & nonbinary, is why business interests should never be in charge of our nation TYVFM.
OT, but, did we join the war against Iran? It's not really clear. trump appears more puffy faced and pig eyed than usual today, and he's now walking back his statement that all 8,000,000 residents of Tehran should evacuate. If we are in, it's a really deft move by net&yahoo to get us to fight Israel's war for them.