A Republican Congressman has called on President Donald Trump to expand work visas after the administration’s back-and-forth over its immigration enforcement policy targeting farms, hotels and restaurants.
Maryland Representative Andy Harris, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, said Tuesday that the president and Congress needed to make an effort to maintain the U.S. workforce while deporting immigrants with criminal records.
His comments came after Trump said Thursday that he had heard concerns about workplace raids on farms and at hospitality venues, including restaurants and hotels, signaling a pause in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions. This was then walked back Monday night.
“There has to be an effort to figure out how to make sure that we have the workforce we need, whether it’s H-2A, H-2B, whether it’s, again, a different category that will result in having an adequate number of workers here in the United States to keep the economy going,” Harris told reporters.
“The president acknowledged it. I believe that now may be the time to have Congress, again, look at these categories, revise the categories, create new categories as necessary as the president, again, attempts to deport people who are here, especially criminals who are here illegally. Clearly, the workforce issues are significant.”
Why It Matters
Harris’s comments reflect a growing concern among the GOP that labor shortages in critical industries could worsen without reforms to temporary work visa programs. The H-2A and H-2B visas allow U.S. employers to bring in foreign workers for seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural jobs, respectively.
Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history as part of his strategy to tackle illegal immigration and strengthen border security. However, the proposal has raised concerns about its impact on the U.S. economy.
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What To Know
According to the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC), agricultural production could decline by $30 billion to $60 billion if Trump’s deportation policy is fully enacted, while the American Immigration Council projects that the president’s mass deportation policy could carry a one-time cost of $315 billion.
Trump appeared to have heard some of those concerns when he posted on Truth Social last Thursday, but the pause on ICE workplace raids was then lifted on Monday.
Harris said Tuesday that the president clearly realized that deporting known illegal immigrant criminals could run in parallel to improvements to work-based visas to ensure U.S. businesses could keep running.
“With an unemployment rate of 4 percent, you’re not going to find American workers for a lot of these tasks,” Harris said. “You haven’t found them even when the unemployment rate was higher.”
Alongside Harris at the ABIC briefing were restaurant and farming leaders, also concerned about ICE raids, who want to see long-term solutions.
The Republican said others in Congress were aware that a long-term solution was needed to make sure farm workers could continue coming to the U.S. legally and that he hoped for progress within the next year.
Other recent attempts to make significant changes to U.S. immigration laws have failed, with no major changes since the early 1990s.
What People Are Saying
President Trump wrote on Truth Social last week: “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.”
Rebecca Shi, CEO, American Business Immigration Coalition told reporters on Jun 17: “We need Congress and the administration to go further with real solutions, and that’s work visas for people who’ve lived, worked, and pay taxes here.”
Matt Teagarden, CEO of Kansas Livestock Association, speaking at Tuesday’s briefing: “These raids disrupt our food supply and contribute to higher food prices. In addition to the workers who have been detained, they also instill fear in these communities, even for legal workers. We’re encouraged by the President’s recognition of the need for a balanced approach to this issue.”
What Happens Next
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reversed last week’s guidance that had temporarily halted workplace immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants.