Trump Border Naht-zee Tom Homan on Wednesday announced a plan to expand civil and criminal prosecutions to companies that employ workers without legal status.
Democrats and even anti-immigration allies of Trump have criticized the regime for its crackdown on immigrants while looking the other way at the employers whose decisions shape huge sectors of the American economy.
Chris Thomas, a partner at Holland & Hart, who represents employers in immigration cases, says he has clients “freaking out” about either criminal sanctions or the effect on their business operations due to the loss of a large labor force.
On Thursday morning, Trump promised farmers and hospitality industries that “changes are coming,” as if he cares that large swaths of workers that are working and contributing to our economy will not be replaced.
Almost a quarter of construction workers lack legal status, a 2021 survey found, and as many as half of meatpacking workers. A crackdown on those two industries alone would undercut campaign promises of cheaper food prices and affordable housing.
When asked by a Semafor reporter whether employers are bad hombres, Homan hedged.
“Depends,” he replied. “I know some employers don’t know a fraudulent document from a legal document. But I truly believe that nobody hires an illegal alien from the goodness of their heart. They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, and undercut their competition — that hires US citizen employees, and drive wages down.”
