AUSTIN (KXAN) – Undocumented workers in some industries throughout the U.S. and Texas will reportedly no longer be a priority in the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown.
Some Texas leaders in industries such as hospitality and agriculture have said the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown has led to them losing dependable workers.
“Restaurants are known as one of the industries that have a significant immigrant workforce,” said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, the chief public affairs officer at the Texas Restaurant Association. “With these immigration crackdowns, there’s a lot of fear, a lot of rumors going around, and that can really slow down our economy in ways I don’t think people always think about,” she continued.
Trump recently acknowledged some of those industry concerns. In a Truth Social post Thursday, he wrote, “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.”
Following the post, the New York Times reported that a senior ICE official had paused raids targeting industries including farms, hotels, restaurants, and meatpacking plants. Instead, ICE agents were told to focus enforcement efforts on individuals with criminal backgrounds, according to the reporting.
TRA told KXAN that it thinks this immigration policy shift will benefit Texas restaurants. It reported that 21% of restaurants report staffing shortages.
“This plan would help address the ongoing labor shortage by allowing only vetted immigrants—those who pass a background check and pay taxes—to work in critical industries that need additional staffing to keep prices down and provide excellent service for all Americans,” the organization wrote.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told KXAN that Trump’s immigration policies have discouraged people from showing up to work at agriculture businesses due to fear of detention.
“Whether legal or not, they’re afraid to show up,” Miller said. “They’re afraid to get deported, even if they are illegal.”
Miller said that Texas agriculture businesses are not as reliant on undocumented workers as people might think. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 42% of hired crop workers are not legally authorized to work in the U.S.
“They don’t need to be cracking down on agriculture enterprises. That’s not where the criminals are,” Miller said. “I appreciate President Trump using some good cowboy logic – common sense – and making that decision.”