‘NO AMNESTY’: Trump, USDA Chief Address Deportations Of Illegal Farm Workers

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins were united in their messaging on Tuesday as to how the administration would handle illegal workers on farms: there will be no amnesty.

Rollins addressed the matter first during a press conference at the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday morning, where The Daily Wire asked her about the president’s previous comments voicing concerns that mass deportations would disrupt the farm industry.

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“We must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportations so as not to compromise our food supply,” she caveated. “Ultimately the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure…there are 34 million able bodied adults in our Medicaid program.”

“There are plenty of workers in America, but we just have to make sure we are not compromising today, especially in the context of everything we are thinking about right now,” she said.

Her comments came amid claims from conservative commentators like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon that there was a push for the president to sign an amnesty deal. Kirk emphasized Tuesday that “people are pushing President Trump for amnesty. They are pushing him for the mass legalization of illegals.”

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And on Tuesday, as she addressed the rumors, Rollins was very frank: there would not be any amnesty deal.

“So, no amnesty under any circumstances,” she told The Daily Wire. “Mass deportations continue but in a strategic and intentional way, as we move our workforce toward more automation and toward a 100% American workforce.”

She pointed to the members of Congress behind her, also gathered for the press conference on the Department of Agriculture’s National Farm Security Action Plan.

“And ultimately, it is the wonderful members of Congress behind me who are taking this on, fixing the current immigration system,” she concluded.

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Both Rollins and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer voiced their support to the president’s statements. Rollins emphasized that mass deportations will continue in a strategic way, and the president chimed in, “We’ve gotta give the farmers the people they need but we’re not talking amnesty.”

Chavez-DeRemer then added that the Department of Labor has developed a new office to answer the needs of farmers and ranchers and producers, and stressed that her office is working “not to displace the American producer.”

“That does not include an amnesty program at all,” she stressed.