Trump teases new policy for migrant farm labor

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will release new rules and regulations on migrant farm labor, as the country’s need for workers and the food they help produce clashes with his vow to deport undocumented immigrants.

Trump said that his administration will continue to deport criminals but that he wants to “work with” farmers to find a solution for their workers, oftentimes immigrants who have lived in the country illegally for decades and are paying taxes. He suggested the White House was working on a touchback program for some workers, requiring them to leave the U.S. and reenter through a legal pathway, an idea that faces strong opposition among immigration hawks who view exceptions for one industry as a slippery slope.

“In some cases, we’re sending them back to their country with a pass back in legally … We’re sending them back, and then they’re schooling, they’re learning, they’re coming in, they’re coming in legally. We have a lot of that going on, but we’re taking care of our farmers,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC. “We can’t let our farmers not have anybody.”

The policy debate has roiled the White House for months, as the president’s aides weigh ideas from across the administration. Officials are debating how to placate farmers’ need for migrant labor without appearing to offer amnesty to undocumented immigrants.

Administration officials have also discussed expanding access to the H-2A program for non-seasonal agricultural industries, like dairy, an issue that has long received Republican support — but it would fall short of replacing the estimated 320,000 undocumented farm workers already in the U.S. And any touchback program, or moves that provide these workers with a path to legal status, will be criticized by immigration hawks who view such exceptions as a form of amnesty.

Trump, who has appeared sympathetic to both farmers and immigration hawks, said Tuesday that the farm laborers aren’t easy to replace — an argument that runs up against critics’ argument that native-born workers could fill the jobs. The president said that “people who live in the inner city” won’t do the work.

“They’ve tried. We’ve tried, Everybody’s tried. They don’t do it. These people do it naturally. Naturally,” Trump said. “I said ‘what happens’ — to a farmer the other day — ’what happens if they get a bad back?’ He said, ‘They don’t get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting.’ In many ways, they’re very, very special people.”

Trump did not say who told him this.