President Donald Trump keeps pushing for the largest Mass Deportation Program in history, and he’s doing this with a focus on blue cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. The ironic part of all this is that two Republican strongholds, Texas and Florida, have the second and third-largest undocumented populations in the country. Yet, ICE raids aren’t storming into Houston or Miami. So, why is Trump’s crackdown on immigration ignoring these red states?
Trump’s Selective Crackdown: Loyalty Over Logic
By observing the narrative so far, it’s clear that the goal is to gain control and not necessarily about immigration. In less than 24 hours, millions protested against his administration in the No Kings movement. Los Angeles and New York City turned out in force for this protest. Sadly, they’ve ended up as ground zero for his revenge tour.
Yet, Texas has an estimated 2.8 million undocumented residents, and Florida has over 2 million, and ICE is not doing anything about it. Rather than target those states, Trump is cozying up to these state leaders who put him back in power. It’s not surprising, though, given that these are the states keeping his campaign alive.
Meanwhile, ICE is already $1 billion over budget, and Trump very well knows that if he takes aggressive action in any red state, it would lead to a blowback from GOP farmers and business owners who rely heavily on immigrant labor.
Protecting the Farm Vote, Not the Border
Red-state backlash made Trump halt ICE raids on farms and hotels. Republican lawmakers demanded that the raids stop, and they did immediately, with Trump telling ICE to focus on inner cities. With 42% of the nation’s crop workers being undocumented, deporting them will destroy the agriculture sector, especially in red states like Texas and Florida.
Even Trump’s resorts in Florida depend on seasonal foreign labor, yet he’s been ranting about Democratic Power Centers using immigrants to cheat elections, even though there is no proof of such. All that he’s been doing so far is shielding the states that feed his empire.
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