A Chaotic Week for Immigration Enforcement

On Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she would “mobilize” people if Republicans moved forward with a proposal to tax remittances sent from the United States to Mexico. 

What, at first, seemed to be nothing more than political pushback against Pres. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill—which includes a 3.5% tax on wire transfers sent out of the country—kicked off a week of violent protests and riots across the country.

Rioters in Los Angeles proudly waved Mexican flags as they protested the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement actions. They defaced federal buildings, set cars on fire, and threw cement blocks, rocks, and fireworks, among other objects, at law enforcement officers. By the end of the week, unrest had spread to other parts of the country, including New York City and Atlanta.

On Tuesday, in an effort to ramp up enforcement efforts and meet higher deportation quotas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided a Grand Valley Foods meat processing plant in Omaha, NE, detaining 75 to 80 individuals who are allegedly in the country illegally. 

News of the ICE enforcement actions in L.A. and Omaha drew backlash not only from Democrats, but from a handful of Republicans. On Wednesday, Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Gabe Evans (R-CO), and David Valadao (R-CA) sent a letter to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons expressing concern that ICE is targeting illegal aliens who haven’t been convicted of additional crimes.

On Thursday morning, Pres. Trump posted on Truth Social that his administration’s focus is on removing criminal aliens, and implied that he might make exceptions for certain illegal aliens working in agriculture and the travel industry. He doubled down during a press conference later in the morning, saying that the administration was working on executive actions that would accommodate farmers and hotel owners who have long-time illegal workers. But he quickly walked back those comments with another Truth Social post in the afternoon, blaming the Biden Administration for allowing in millions of illegal aliens that “have stolen American Jobs” and refocusing on immigration enforcement.

It’s imperative that Pres. Trump continues to deport illegal aliens, including those without criminal records. Our friend Art Arthur from the Center for Immigration Studies wrote this week that the Trump Administration’s early focus on deportations has led to a significant number of illegal aliens dropping out of the labor force since Inauguration Day. It is likely that a relatively large number of illegal aliens have self deported from the United States because they fear being apprehended and deported by ICE. If Pres. Trump were to take his foot off the gas pedal or limit enforcement efforts to only criminal aliens, it could reverse that trend and cause illegal aliens who are thinking of leaving the country to feel safe enough to stay. This is important because, of course, it is a whole lot more cost effective to encourage illegal aliens to leave on their own, rather than going through the process of removing them.

Commentary

ICYMI: The One Immigration Number That Matters
On Thursday of last week, Commonplace.org published an op-ed from the Immigration Accountability Project that discusses steps the Trump Administration can take to ramp up deportations. With all of the focus on deportations and worksite enforcement this week, we wanted to include it in this week’s newsletter, as well, to ensure you saw it.

Trump has made significantly more progress—in record time—on securing the border than his predecessors. But delivering the scale of deportations of illegal immigrants already here will take even more. To ramp up removal numbers consistent with the desires of the American voter will require a coordinated effort targeting the black market in labor that drives much of the illegal immigration demand.

Immigration News

Trump Announces Trade Deal and Drops Plans to Revoke Chinese Student Visas
Pres. Trump announced a pending trade agreement with China this week. A few weeks ago, Secretary Rubio announced that he was going to begin revoking visas for certain Chinese students, including those with ties to the Communist Party. According to the President, the deal would allow Chinese students to continue coming to the United States to study.

Biden’s Afghan airlift allowed 82 terrorism suspects into U.S.
We now have more details on the chaotic (and unlawful) evacuation and parole of Afghans in 2021. While we knew that the vetting process was incredibly poor, we now know the Biden Administration let at least 55 people into the country who were on the terror watchlist at the time, and 27 more who were added to the watchlist after resettlement here.

Next Week

The House is on recess next week for the Juneteenth holiday, but the Senate will be in session and will continue processing the One Big Beautiful Bill. The Senate Budget Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee released their portions of the text late last night, and we are going through them to make sure they track closely to the House provisions on immigration.