WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.
The decision suggested that the scale of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.
The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Trump made a rare concession this past week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.
The guidance was sent Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including worksite operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.
“Effective today, please hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.
The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” But it said agents were not to make arrests of “noncriminal collaterals,” a reference to people living in the country without legal status but not known to have committed any crime.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the guidance.
“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,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokesperson.
For months, Trump and his aides have said they would target all immigrants without legal status in the United States to make good on his campaign promise for mass deportations. Although the administration came into office saying it would initially target immigrants living in the country illegally and who had criminal records, it has expanded to raiding worksites and sweeping up other unauthorized immigrants broadly.
On Thursday, Trump acknowledged that the crackdown might be alienating industries that he wanted to keep on his side.
“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,” he said on social media.