Spanish
Washington.- The US President Donald Trump's government has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary raids against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, as reported this Friday by the newspaper The New York Times.
According to an email accessed by the newspaper and confirmation from U.S. officials, the Executive Branch has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pause the raids affecting the agricultural and hospitality industries.
The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that "the president's instructions" will be followed and that the department will continue "working to remove the worst illegal alien criminals from the streets of the United States."
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The decision suggests that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport immigrants on a large scale is harming industries and electoral districts whose support Trump wants to retain in the run-up to next year's legislative elections. The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking to "suspend all investigations/law enforcement operations in workplaces in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels". These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where the raids have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor. Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive hard-line policy against immigration, and officials from his Cabinet recently held a meeting with the leadership of ICE to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests per day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
