By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – June 13, 2024

Trump says businesses report losing ‘very good, long time workers.’ How about changing policy?

Then Mr. Trump turned the focus back where the White House wants it, which is gang members and threats to public safety. “We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA,” he said. “Changes are coming!” How cryptic. The electorate is with Mr. Trump on catching and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. Yet much more than that is happening, and more than farmers and hoteliers are concerned.

Vincent Scardina is a Trump voter in Key West, Fla., who owns a roofing company. Six of his workers, originally from Nicaragua, were en route to a job late last month when they were detained, according to a report by a local NBC affiliate. Their attorney says five of those men have valid work permits, pending asylum cases, and no criminal records. We haven’t been able to verify that, but if it’s correct, jailing them is a strange enforcement priority.

“It’s going to be really hard to replace those guys,” Mr. Scardina said. “We’re not able, in Key West, to just replace people as easily as, say, a big city.” He also got emotional. “You get to know these guys. You become their friends,” he said. “You see what happens to their family.” Mr. Scardina’s message to the President that he helped to elect: “What happened here? This situation is just totally, just blatantly, not at all what they said it was.”

Four hours after that post about farms and hotels, Mr. Trump was back on Truth Social. President Biden let in “21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens,” who have “stolen American Jobs,” he said. “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History.” For the record, the Census Bureau says the U.S. population is about 342 million, so he’s talking about maybe deporting 1 person in every 20.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s deportation maestro, Stephen Miller, wants the immigration cops to arrest 3,000 migrants a day. That means raiding businesses across the country. Mr. Trump prefers to talk about “CRIMINALS” because he knows that’s where he has broad public support.

But his federal agents are out raiding job sites full of non-criminal, hard-working people who are contributing to the American economy. The real policy isn’t what Mr. Trump says, but what his agents do on the ground.

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Source: Mass Deportation . . . Except at Hotels? – WSJ