Donald Trump’s rapid flip-flop on not deporting undocumented migrant farm and hotel workers came after the president was reportedly met with angry pushback from Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem.
Trump briefly changed his mind on who ICE should kick out of the country after getting a phone call from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, according to Axios.
Speaking at the White House on June 12, Trump said, "We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not.”
Rollins reportedly went over Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to speak with the president. Axios reported the pair were angry over Rollins’ actions.
In response, Noem and Miller went to the president to change his mind. The policy was switched to meet their position and raids on those sectors resumed, reported CBS News.
On Sunday, Trump also announced the administration would target U.S. metropolitan areas, particularly “sanctuary cities.”
"ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” the president wrote on the social media platform.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, doubled down on the president’s remarks, saying, “There has not been a change in our posture.”
Another senior administration official told Axios the president “doesn’t need to hear from Conrad Hilton to know about the hotel business,” he said. “He has his own resort."
Almost six months since Trump’s inauguration, President Barack Obama still holds the record for deporting the most amount of migrants. His administration deported 438,421 people in 2013.
To break Obama’s record, Trump would need to double the current number of people his administration is deporting, but it’s unclear if that could be done. Trump briefly changed his tune on deportations last week.
At the end of April, the administration said it had deported about 139,000 migrants.
