President Donald Trump suggested at a Cabinet meeting Thursday that undocumented people working on farms and in hotels would be allowed to leave the country and return as legal workers if their employers vouched for them.
Trump said at the meeting with reporters present that “we have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people.”
“So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard. We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers.”
It was unclear what he meant by “slow it down a little bit for them.” The administration has been pouring resources into arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants to fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to conduct a history-making mass deportation of immigrants from the United States.
Trump said the administration is going to work with people if they “go out… in a nice way.”
“We’re going to work with them right from the beginning on, trying to get them back in legally. So it gives you real incentive. Otherwise they never come back. They’ll never be allowed once a certain period of time goes by, which is probably going to be 60 days,” he said.
In response to an NBC News request for more details, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the Trump administration “is committed to delivering on the mandate that the American people gave to President Trump with a whole-of-government approach to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and put America First.”
The United States has programs that allow immigrants to come to the country and work, although employers often complain about the difficulties of using them. Farmworker and immigrant advocates have often pushed for better regulation of the programs to ensure workers are not exploited or abused or pushed into substandard living or working conditions.
A White House official told NBC News that Trump wants to improve the H-2A program, through which employers in the agricultural industry can hire temporary and seasonal workers, and the H-2B program, for hiring immigrant workers for temporary, seasonal jobs in other industry sectors, such as hospitality and entertainment, and in the tourism industry. Trump has used the H-2B program.
Trump spoke after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made statements about self-deportation and a Trump administration policy that requires people here illegally to register with the Department of Homeland Security using an app it has dubbed “CBP Home” or face criminal charges and purposes. A federal judge on Thursday allowed the registration requirement to go forward.
