Summary
Donald Trump, who has pledged to crack down on immigration, continues to hire foreign guest workers for his businesses at record levels.
In 2024, Trump’s companies, including Mar-a-Lago, his golf courses, and a Virginia winery, hired 209 foreign workers, nearly double the number from a decade ago.
Most were employed under H-2B visas, meant for seasonal jobs when American workers are unavailable.
Critics argue these programs undermine U.S. workers’ bargaining power, while Trump’s allies, like Project 2025, advocate for restricting such visas. Trump has distanced himself from these proposals while continuing to utilize the program.
He doesn’t want them gone, and neither do any other oligarch.
They want them in a grey legal area, so they can be exploited more efficiently, is all.
Keep illegal immigrants working in farm work. Now, they have now labor protections, and BOOM! MOAR PROFITS!
That’s all.
I could see them putting immigrants in camps and then saying “oh their home country won’t take them back. We’ll just keep them in camp. Oh and they’ll have to work obv. Can’t be slackers in america.”
Coincidentally an oligarch will own the camp and the work output.
Schindlers list style,
He doesn’t actually want them gone. He wants them oppressed and desperate.
That’s actually been the standard Republican strategy for as long as I can remember, because they’re trying to serve two purposes at the same time. On the one hand they want to appeal to the racists in their party, but on the other hand, they want to ensure that American businesses enjoy uninterrupted access to cheap and desperate labor. And the two actually complement each other pretty well. They can and do foment hatred and promise mass deportations and all of that to appeal to the racists, but never quite manage to actually solve the supposed problem, or even really make any headway on it, which means that businesses can stil take advantage of cheap and desperate labor and there are still “illegals” for the racists to rail against.
Talks of deportation are, mostly, dog whistles. He did the same thing during his first term with H2B labor
And also to foster an economy of undocumented workers to drive down labor costs.
They don’t want immigrants gone, they want them underpaid and unregulated.
Oh they don’t really want them gone, just for them to lose their legal status so they can be underpaid, and won’t dare to report any workplace violations under the threat of deportation.
In fact, that’s already happening, they just want to convert more Americans’ status to “illegal immigrant”
Trump doesn’t want anything except money and power. Saying he wants to deport immigrants gets him support from xenophobes and bigots.
