The president’s 360-degree turn on workplace raids shows his current policy isn’t working. There’s an easier way.
On illegal immigration, President Donald Trump just rapidly executed a rare maneuver: the flip-flop-flip.
His administration has spent months talking, and acting, tough on “mass deportation.” But on June 12, he said that to avoid economic pain he would exempt farms, hotels and restaurants from worksite raids to enforce the immigration laws. In response, the Department of Homeland Security suspended such raids. Then, on June 15, Trump signaled that he was going to take back the exemptions: Mass deportation was back on, especially in places where Democratic officials refuse to participate in enforcing the law. The next day, the department confirmed that raids were back on.
We’re used to slapdash inconstancy from Trump. But his ambivalence is understandable and widely shared. On the one hand, the presence of millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. makes a mockery of our laws and outrages much of the public. On the other, many industries have come to rely on them and their sudden departure would disrupt the economy, just as Trump said. Those dueling impulses are why the past few decades have seen tough laws and lax enforcement.
