Shortly after the 2024 presidential election, the new “border tsar” Tom Homan sent the message that President Donald Trump’s “expulsion” campaign would target criminals and offenders.

Even today, Interior Security Minister Christie Noem assures that federal agents focus on the “worst of the worst” – a tacit recognition that many Americans may want to remove the dangerous elements, but not their peaceful, productive immigrants.

The assurances, however, that the Trump government will focus on dangerous criminals are not in line with the president’s own promise of mass deportations. On the one hand, there are not enough violent, irregular immigrants to the United States to keep his promise, on the other hand, their finding is extremely difficult.

However, Trump’s hard -core immigration advisers, led by White House Deputy Chief Steven Miller, were not going to be sufficient in a pragmatic approach, such as that followed by previous US presidents, who recognized them as ” dynamic.

And indeed, Miller expressed his dissatisfaction with the pace of deportations, just asking for the previous month increase immigrant arrests to 3,000 a day. The result is what we see: massive and without discrimination of businesses, which have already caused strong protests in Los Angeles – and not only.

Homan now promises’ more checks on workplaces From ever before in the history of the country. ” Contrary to the narrative of prosecution of criminals – which finds wider political acceptance – this threat targets farms, in building, in the fields of cleanliness and household care, that is, the occupations on which the daily lives of Americans are based. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives are already calling for “restraint”.

Is calculated that About 8.3 million employees with no paper participate in US economic activity – percentage corresponding to 4.8% of the total workforce. They are almost half of workers in the primary sectorand his contribution to child care is completely critical. Also, about 1.4 million work in the construction sector – the only industry that can help reduce housing prices.

It is worth noting that during the Covid-19 pandemic, immigration services did not make any raids on workplaces, because it was these workers who kept the economy in operation.

As the US domestic workforce gets old and decreasingthe role of immigrant workers become even more critical.

The Baby Boomers generation retire and younger Americans are having a lesser degree. At the same time, Americans will probably “rebel” when strawberry prices are launched due to expulsion of workers, or when federals target their nannies and waitresses.

The previous US presidents have avoided openly targeting workers without documents, both to protect the economy and not to clash with the business world.

In 1998, immigration authorities stopped the raids on Vintalia’s onion crops in Georgia, following an angry letter from Republican Senator Paul Caverdel, who denounced the “without discrimination and inappropriate use of extreme methods”.

Although not one Law of 1986 It allows sanctions to be imposed on employers who hire immigrants without a work permit – in the sense that if access to the job is restricted, the immigration incentive will be reduced – the government has essentially left businesses in the restless. Although businesses were obliged to ask for documents, they rarely had consequences even when they were obviously fake.

So did Trump in his first term. Despite his cruel rhetoric against immigrants, he did little to limit the recruitment of irregular immigrants from businesses. In 2017, he even reduced the penalty of an executive to an unit of meat in Iowa, who had been convicted of Obama’s presidency for fraud and for deliberate hiring hundreds of immigrants without papers, even paying their fake documents.

In other words, Even Trump declined to hit the demand For imported workforce – for which to a certain extent “complicit” the Americans themselves – and focused on limiting the offer (ie the availability to hire immigrants).

Perhaps, for at least a while, he will achieve his goal. The flows of irregular migrants to the southern border have declined. Excessive, without discrimination operations for arrests lately – as well as the controversial mission of military forces to Los Angeles – may discourage new arrivals of immigrants or even pushing some to leave or remain “invisible”.

Perhaps the president manages to lift the unwritten law that demand creates offer – In this case, that the need for work will continue to attract immigrants. If it does, it will be an unexpected and economically painful development.

After all, this unwritten law has been the inter -party political attitude for years that the only way to deal with irregular migration is to expand the legal entry paths so that the demand for work is covered by controlled immigrants, willing to join American society.

And the view that by combining this policy with more stricter border controls and special programs for specialized workers, a comprehensive, development and deterrent strategy could be formed.

Trump, on the other hand, has limited the legal routes to entry into the US.

There is no doubt that many Trump supporters have been tired of this old ‘recipe’which has been repeated for decades. But also from Congress’s failure to prevent irregular migration either through this unwritten law or in some other way. As well as the inadequate recognition of their concerns by previous US presidents.

Trump’s victory in 2024 gave them a political mandate for stricter measures. But this strategy may prove much more difficult to maintain than it seems.