Trump Says He’ll Work With Farmers To Not Immediately Deport Key Laborers

President Donald Trump told reporters during a Thursday cabinet meeting that he would work with American farmers to not deport their key migrant workers.

“We’re also gonna work with farmers that if they have strong recommendations for their farms for certain people, we’re going to let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process, a legal process,” Trump said.

He also indicated that he would work with farmers, hotels and other businesses to expedite the process of returning migrant workers who have already been deported.

“If they go out in a nice way and go back to their country, we’re going to work with them right from the beginning on trying to get them back in legally,” he said.

Some farmers have expressed financial worry over the cost of replacing laborers amid the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation spree. (RELATED: ICE To Deport Hezbollah Ally Who Entered US Under Biden)

“Farmers are in trouble right now in the United States. We’re struggling,” Republican Georgia State Sen. Sam Watson, who owns and operates a vegetable farm in his state, told the Daily Caller.

“I use a lot of migrant labor, our labor rates are going through the roof,” he continued.

“I don’t mind paying high labor rates, but the problem is my competition is Mexico and guess what they’re paying in Mexico. They’re not paying the same thing I’m having to pay in Georgia and in the United States, but guess where the produce is cheaper?”

In 2019, around 27.3 % — over 800,000 — of all agricultural workers in the U.S. were illegal migrants, according to the New American Economy Research Fund. Approximately 48.9 % of them originated from outside the U.S.

A farmer walks through land neighboring the US Customs and Boarder Protection complex where underage people caught illegally entering the United States are housed at the Tornillo Port of Entry June 19, 2018 in Fabens, Texas. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

One of Trump’s core campaign promises was to send the mass influx of illegal migrants that surged into the U.S. under former President Joe Biden back to their countries of origin. Annual net migration — legal and illegal — averaged 2.4 million people per year from 2021-2023 and the share of foreign-born population in the U.S. reached 15.2 percent in 2023, the highest on record, according to The New York Times.

President Trump has taken swift action, both to try and quell the migration flow and to deport illegal migrants already in the US. (RELATED: Trump Forced Mexico’s Hand On Immigration — The Reforms Are Already Working)

ICE reported 32,809 enforcement arrests through the Trump administration’s first 50 days. They contrasted this with the 33,242 total enforcement arrests in the 2024 fiscal year.

Trump struck deals with Mexico and Canada to start vetting and holding migrants on their sides of the border early in his presidency. He has also inked a deal with El Salvador to accept and confine deportees suspected of being part of gangs such as the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.