U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told field office heads during a call on Monday that it would roll back a directive issued last week that largely paused raids on the businesses, the former officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss the new guidance.

ICE officials were told a daily quota to make 3,000 arrests per day — 10 times the average last year during former President Joe Biden’s administration – would remain in effect, the former officials said. ICE field office heads had raised concerns they could not meet the quota without raids at the businesses that had been exempted, one of the sources said.

It was not clear why last week’s directive was reversed. Some ICE officials left the call confused, and it appeared they would still need to tread carefully with raids on the previously exempted businesses, the former officials said.

‘No safe spaces’

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said ICE would continue to make arrests at worksites but did not respond to questions about the new guidance.

“There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Washington Post first reported the reversal.

Trump took office in January aiming to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. ICE doubled the pace of arrests under Trump compared with last year but still remains far below what would be needed to deport millions of people.

Top White House aide Stephen Miller ordered ICE in late May to dramatically increase arrests to 3,000 per day, leading to intensified raids that prominently targeted some businesses.

‘Chaos and confusion since the beginning’

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that farms and hotel businesses had been suffering from the ramped up enforcement but also said, without evidence or explanation, that criminals were trying to fill those jobs.

ICE issued guidance that day pausing most immigration enforcement at agricultural, hospitality and food processing businesses. But in another Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump called on ICE to target the Democratic strongholds of Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and to use the full extent of their authority to increase deportations.

A White House official said Trump was keeping a promise to deliver the country’s single largest mass deportation program.

“Anyone present in the United States illegally is at risk of deportation,” the White House official said.

Deborah Fleischaker, who held senior roles at both DHS and ICE during Biden’s presidency, said the shifting ICE guidance reflects broader turmoil at the agency since Trump took office. The White House has ousted multiple ICE leaders as it pressed for more arrests.

“It has been chaos and confusion since the beginning,” she said.

Farmers push back

The intensified ICE enforcement after Miller’s late May order renewed long-running concerns among farmers about ICE operations targeting their workforce. Nearly half the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as do many dairy and meatpacking workers.

Farm industry fears escalated last week when ICE detentions and arrests of workers were reported at California farms, a Nebraska meatpacking plant and a New Mexico dairy.

Livestock and restaurant sector representatives said on a press call organized by the American Business Immigration Coalition on Tuesday that raids make operations more difficult in their heavily immigrant-dependent industries.

“The people pushing for these raids that target farms and feedyards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,” said Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association.

Michael Marsh, CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said farm groups had not had enough input into the administration’s decision-making so far on immigration enforcement in agriculture.

Marsh said he had not received responses from Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials to a letter sent last week requesting a meeting.

“We’ve got a serious issue if we have almost a million of our workers that are going to be subject to deportation,” he said. “Because if that’s the case, and they are picked up and they are gone, we can’t fill those positions.”

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The order to scale back U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids came from Trump himself, the person familiar with the matter said, and appears to rein in a late-May demand by top White House aide Stephen Miller for more aggressive sweeps.

Trump was not aware of the extent of the enforcement push and “once it hit him, he pulled it back,” the person said.

New orders to come

The new directive, issued on Thursday, still allows for investigations into serious crimes such as human trafficking. The New York Times first reported the guidance.

Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. While Trump framed the effort around removing serious criminals, thousands of suspected immigration offenders with no criminal records have been swept up in recent months.

ICE’s more aggressive tactics – including raids in Los Angeles – have sparked protests and pushback from Democrats. Some Republican lawmakers have called on the administration to focus on criminal offenders.

Trump said on Thursday that he would issue an order soon to address the effects of his immigration crackdown on the country’s farm and hotel industries, which rely heavily on immigrant labor.

“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,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement when asked about the new ICE guidance.

Farm groups skeptical of promised changes

The White House pointed to a Trump social media post on Thursday where he said farms and hospitality businesses were concerned the administration’s far-reaching immigration enforcement was taking away “very good, long time workers” and promising changes.

U.S. farm industry groups have long wanted Trump to spare their sector from mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain dependent on immigrants.

The United Farm Workers union said on Friday that it was skeptical the new directive would help workers without legal status. The group said it had calls from members about immigration arrests even after the new directive was issued.

“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,” the union said in a statement.

— Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco, Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, Anusha Shah in Bengaluru.

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So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.

Trump, a Republican, vowed to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his campaign to win back the White House, a logistically challenging undertaking that critics say could split apart families and disrupt U.S. businesses.

Homan has said immigration enforcement will focus on criminals and people with final deportation orders but that no immigrant in the U.S. illegally will be exempt.

He told Fox News on Nov. 11 that enforcement against businesses would “have to happen” but has not said whether the agricultural sector would be targeted.

“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” Homan said in a phone interview this month.

Mass removal of farm workers would shock the food supply chain and drive consumer grocery prices higher, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University.

“They’re filling critical roles that many U.S.-born workers are either unable or unwilling to perform,” Ortega said.

Farm groups and Republican allies are encouraged by the incoming administration’s stated focus on criminals.

Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers, which represents produce farmers, said the group supports that approach and is concerned about impacts to the farm sector if a deportation plan was targeted at farmworkers.

Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the farmer concerns in a statement to Reuters.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness,” Leavitt said. “He will deliver.”

Trump announced on Saturday that he would nominate Brooke Rollins, who chaired the White House Domestic Policy Council during his first term, to become agriculture secretary.

Agriculture and related industries contributed $1.5 trillion (C$2.1 trillion) to the U.S. gross domestic product, or 5.6 per cent, in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In his first administration, Trump promised the farm sector that his deportation effort would not target food sector workers, though the administration did conduct raids at some agricultural worksites, including poultry processing plants in Mississippi and produce processing facilities in Nebraska.

U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported.

Duarte’s congressional seat is one of a handful of close races where a winner has yet to be declared.

Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.

“I would like to hear more clearly expressed that these families will not be targeted,” he said.

‘We need the certainty’

Farmers have a legal option for hiring labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in an unlimited number of seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.

The program has grown over time, with 378,000 H-2A positions certified by the Labor Department in 2023, three times more than in 2014, according to agency data.

But that figure is only about 20 per cent of the nation’s farm workers, according to the USDA. Many farmers say they cannot afford the visa’s wage and housing requirements. Others have year-round labor needs that rule out the seasonal visas.

Farmers and workers would benefit from expanded legal pathways for agricultural laborers, said John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, a farmer lobby group.

“We need the certainty, reliability and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table,” said John Hollay, director of government relations at the International Fresh Produce Association, which represents produce farmers.

For decades, farm and worker groups have attempted to pass immigration reform that would enable more agricultural workers to stay in the U.S., but the legislation has failed so far.

The risk of enforcement against farms is likely low because of the necessity of the workers, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney at Holland & Knight.

“There are some very significant business interests that obviously want agricultural labor and need it,” he said.

But for farmworkers, the fear of enforcement can create chronic stress, said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is training workers to know their rights if confronted by immigration officials.

If there are again raids on meatpacking plants, immigration enforcement should take precautions to avoid detaining workers in the country legally, said Marc Perrone, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents some meatpacking workers.

Edgar Franks, a former farmworker and political director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a worker union in Washington state, said the group is seeing new energy from workers to organize.

“The anxiety and fear is real. But if we’re together, there’s a better chance for us to fight back,” he said.

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