By Ted Hesson and Marisa Taylor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has directed immigration officials to largely pause raids on farms, hotels, restaurants and meatpacking plants, according to an internal email reviewed by Reuters, a senior Trump official, and a person familiar with the matter.
The order to scale back U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids came from Trump himself, the person familiar with the matter said, and appears to rein in a late-May demand by top White House aide Stephen Miller for more aggressive sweeps.
Trump was not aware of the extent of the enforcement push and “once it hit him, he pulled it back,” the person said.
The new directive, issued on Thursday, still allows for investigations into serious crimes such as human trafficking. The New York Times first reported the guidance.
Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. While Trump framed the effort around removing serious criminals, thousands of suspected immigration offenders with no criminal records have been swept up in recent months.
ICE’s more aggressive tactics – including raids in Los Angeles – have sparked protests and pushback from Democrats. Some Republican lawmakers have called on the administration to focus on criminal offenders.
Trump said on Thursday that he would issue an order soon to address the effects of his immigration crackdown on the country’s farm and hotel industries, which rely heavily on immigrant labor.
“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,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement when asked about the new ICE guidance.
The White House pointed to a Trump social media post on Thursday where he said farms and hospitality businesses were concerned the administration’s far-reaching immigration enforcement was taking away “very good, long time workers” and promising changes.
U.S. farm industry groups have long wanted Trump to spare their sector from mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain dependent on immigrants.
The United Farm Workers union said on Friday that it was skeptical the new directive would help workers without legal status. The group said it had calls from members about immigration arrests even after the new directive was issued.
“As long as Border Patrol and ICE are allowed to sweep through farm worker communities making chaotic arrests…they are still hunting down farm workers,” the union said in a statement.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Marisa Taylor; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco, Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Franklin Paul)
