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Donald Trump has said his administration must focus its crackdown on immigration by targeting “illegal aliens” in the the largest US cities, as the White House cools on raiding farms amid a backlash from the agricultural sector and other vulnerable industries.
The US president posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that to achieve his goal of “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History”, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers needed to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside”.
The pledge to focus the anti-immigration clampdown on big cities follows reports that the administration was pausing raids on farms, hotels and restaurants amid a backlash among industries that rely on foreign workers.
Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, wrote on social media platform X on Sunday that the administration had “consistently advanced a ‘Farmers First’ approach, recognizing that American households depend upon a stable and LEGAL agricultural workforce”.
She added: “Severe disruptions to our food supply would harm Americans. It took us decades to get into this mess and we are prioritizing deportations in a way that will get us out.”
United Farm Workers of America expressed scepticism about the reported “pause” on immigration raids on agricultural work sites.
“As long as Border Patrol and ICE are allowed to sweep through farm worker communities making chaotic arrests . . . they are still hunting down farm workers,” UFW said in a statement on Friday. The group called on Trump to “stop the sweeps on hardworking Californians”.
The administration’s shift in immigration enforcement was first reported by The New York Times.
Trump, who won heavily in rural districts in 2024, added on Sunday that large US cities were “the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens”.
The US president has clashed with officials in California, including governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, after he deployed the National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests in the state’s most populous city and support his anti-immigration crackdown.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in US cities and towns in all 50 states over the weekend to oppose what they view as a deterioration of democracy under Trump, marking the biggest mobilisation against the US president since he returned to the White House.
The “No Kings” protests, which organisers say were attended by more than 5mn people nationwide, took place at the same time as a military parade in Washington to mark the 250th anniversary of the US Army that coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Trump in 2016, described the event on X as “a low-energy Dear Leader parade” using a common moniker for former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
