Conservative National Review editorial blasts Trump’s flip flops on key labor issue

President Donald Trump's mass deportations are drawing criticism not only from Democrats and immigrants' rights groups, but also, from some sectors of the business world — including agriculture and hospitality, both of which rely heavily on immigrant labor.

The complaints from businesses are getting Trump's attention, as many farmers voted for him in 2024 and large hotels have been a big part of his real estate empire over the years.

In late June, the Trump White House announced a "temporary pass" for migrants working in agriculture and hospitality. And Trump said, "I cherish our farmers. And when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years, who were good, who possibly came in incorrectly. And what we're going to do is we're going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge. The farmer knows he's not going to hire a murderer."

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But the conservative National Review, in an editorial published on July 1, comments, "Funny, we don't remember when it was that the American people elected the farm and hotel lobbies to be in charge of immigration enforcement."

The United States, the Review argues, needs a "robust" system to help businesses make sure that people they hire are in the country legally.

"America is more than a day-laborer hiring platform," The National Review's editorial board argues. "The hospitality and agriculture industries should not get a pass. And they should adapt themselves to lawful hiring. There is already a generous visa system for such workers; it can always be simplified and made easier to use. Hiring within the law almost certainly will mean offering higher wages or better working conditions and exploring greater automation, expedients that other American industries take for granted."

The Review editors add, "The alternative is a status quo in which a slice of the economy is marked off as the preserve of illegal labor. This constitutes allowing employers to create a class of workers who don't have the full protection of the law. This goes against America's republican ideals and the Republican Party’s founding principle of free men and free labor competing under one set of laws for all."

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Read The National Review's full editorial at this link.