Wary response in Bay Area after Trump reportedly halts workplace raids at farms, hotels, eateries
'This is not a victory,' said Reyna Maldonado, owner of Las Guerreras, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Oakland. 'It's a political calculation, and we have every reason to remain skeptical.'
The Trump administration on Thursday directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely put a hold on enforcement operations across agricultural restaurant and hotel workplaces, according to an email obtained by the New York Times and reported by other outlets. The direction came as President Donald Trump acknowledged on social media that his aggressive immigration crackdown was hurting industries that he counted on for support.
'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 wrote in a social media post.
The industries singled out by Trump are major operators in California, so the impacts of an immigration crackdown and a potential reversal could be significant. The state produces more than a third of the nation's vegetables and three quarters of its fruits and nuts, according to the state agricultural department. California is also the top tourism destination in the country.
The policy shift comes amid a push by the administration to detain and deport more undocumented immigrants that has sparked massive protests, particularly in California. Trump has deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in response to ongoing demonstrations in Los Angeles.
Workplace raids have been part of immigration agents' strategy, but they've also detained many immigrants showing up to required court appearances in San Francisco and elsewhere. The expansion of raids to include non-criminals working in various industries has been particularly controversial.
Prior to reports of the policy shift, the California Farm Bureau on Friday put out a statement saying that the administration's immigration enforcement tactics were 'having a disruptive effect on California's rural communities and the farmers, ranchers, workers and families who live and work there.'
'If federal immigration enforcement activities continue in this direction, it will become increasingly difficult to produce food, process it and get it onto grocery store shelves,' Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau, said in the statement.
Rumors of immigration raids spread across California's Central Valley fields this week, stoking fear among laborers and leading some to stay home from work.
Andy Naja-Riese, CEO of Agricultural Institute of Marin, which operates more than a half dozen farmers markets, said Saturday he was hopeful that those who are working in the fields would not be subject to deportations and that they could 'continue to do the work that they do and stay here with their families and their neighbors.'
In Oakland, Maldonado, a Mexican immigrant and recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, has held several team meetings in recent weeks to talk with her restaurant staff about evacuation plans in case of a raid and to ensure that everyone, including undocumented workers, knew their rights.
'It's been extremely difficult for all of us to come to work with so much tension and stress,' she said. 'As business owners, we're living with one foot in our dream, and the other one in a nightmare.'
Despite the administration reportedly shifting its mass deportation campaign away from farms, hotels and restaurants, Maldonado said Saturday that she felt little relief.
'The lack of safety doesn't stop at restaurants. ICE is going to continue to show up in neighborhoods, other workplaces and at homes,' she said. 'This is a tactic to confuse the public, ease criticism from industries that heavily depend on immigrant labor and then quietly continue to terrorize undocumented people.'
News of the new guidance broke the evening before No Kings protests launched in more than 2,000 cities across the nation in opposition to a large-scale military parade planned by the Trump administration to celebrate the president's 79th birthday.
In San Francisco, protester Alexis Mauricio stood in Civic Center Plaza holding a sign that read "Tu Lucha es Mi Lucha," meaning "your fight is my fight." Inside each letter she had illustrated a flag from different countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Honduras and the United States.
Mauricio, 30, said she was unimpressed by Trump's decision to pull back on the workplace raids.
"I'll believe it when I see it," she said. "Those people never should have been targeted in the first place."
Reporter J.D. Morris contributed to this report.
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