Trump is surprisingly right about one of the ways his ICE raids have gone wrong
President Donald Trump has for years dismissed critics of his mass deportation program as simply not understanding his policy genius. But in a rare apparent concession, the president posted to Truth Social on Thursday seeming to acknowledge how his immigration raids in particular have impacted American farmers.
'Our great farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump wrote. 'That is not good…Changes are coming!'
For once, he's right.
Trump and his Republican supporters swept into office last year thanks to big promises to help America's forgotten small farmers. Instead, they've pillaged the land for cash and left struggling farmers with the bill. Farmers have warned their Republican lawmakers for months that mass deportations and tariff battles would cripple rural states' agricultural economies. Battered by trade wars, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and a budget that slashes their take-home pay, America's farmers have been fighting for their livelihoods. It's a fight that could rattle the foundations of the GOP's electoral coalition just as voters begin thinking about next year's midterm elections.
Trump's ever-expanding use of ICE deportation raids made new waves this past week after anti-ICE protests broke out in Los Angeles, and Republicans reflexively focused on disparaging a Democratic city in turmoil. In reality, Trump's ICE raids have played out in red states like Nebraska, too, albeit without the same heavy TV coverage.
Farmers from California to Nebraska have shuttered operations in the wake of raids that carted off dozens of workers. In Florida, Trump voter Vincent Scardina choked back tears as he described a raid where ICE detained six of his longtime employees, all Nicaraguan men, The Daily Beast reported. Those men represent a third of Scardina's staff, and he has no idea how his business will replace them while staying afloat.
After the president promised to focus his efforts on capturing 'dangerous criminals,' Trump's broad ICE raids feel like a betrayal to many farmers. The workers and families picked up in farm raids aren't bloodthirsty gang members Republicans talk so much about. In many cases they are longtime family friends and senior team members. In one January raid that resulted in the arrests of over 1,200 people, nearly half of them had no criminal record at all.
Farmers have also had to internalize a deep sense of unfairness in Trump's policies. The factory farms and meatpacking companies that donate to Republicans by a two-to-one margin have so far been spared ICE raids despite being among the nation's biggest exploiters of illegal migrant labor. In an industry where two-thirds of workers are here illegally, federal enforcement seems to be falling almost exclusively on the smallest — and poorest — offenders.
If the relationship between Republicans and their rural base was already strained over immigration, Trump's brutal federal spending cuts sent things into a deep freeze. In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed over $1 billion from a federal food-purchasing program that served as a lifeline for farmers in Iowa, North Dakota and across the plains. Anna Pesek, who owns Over the Moon Farm, told the North Dakota Monitor that Trump's cuts would shrink her business by about 10% and worsen her already tight profit margins. Follow the supply chain and you'll also find that rural food banks depend on that program to stock food for hungry families.
Again, not everyone is suffering equally. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill proposes even more cuts to USDA support programs that form the backbone of a small farmer's life and business. House Republicans have proposed the deepest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in history, amounting to over $300 billion in reductions. For the farmers who supply SNAP with healthy produce, those cuts mean devastating income losses and even farm closures.
The world looks a lot different if you run one of the megafarms owned by a multinational corporation like Cargill. Big agribusiness spent over $178 million on federal lobbying last year, and in return Trump's budget showers America's richest farmers with billions of dollars in subsidies. Taxpayer money that once supported rural schools, food banks, adult education centers and health clinics will instead help megafarms drive even more small farmers out of business.
Despite asking the small farmers who voted for him to accept massive cuts in federal support, Trump's budget still expands USDA's budget by $56.6 billion. Almost all of that increase — $52.3 billion — comes in the form of expanded subsidies that are mostly claimed by industrial farms growing key staple crops. Indiana's 25,000 small farmers may be losing their local health clinics and workers, but at least the executives at Archer Daniels Midland can afford another round of bonuses.
All of that unhappiness is causing serious problems for Republicans in areas that used to be political strongholds. Trump's approval recently fell to a low of 38%, driven in large part by erosion in the GOP's core support. Rural voters have consistently supported Trump at the ballot box, and he even improved his numbers with them last year, to a record 63%. Those days are over: An NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted in April found that only 4 in 10 rural voters approve of Trump today.
Republican lawmakers know how difficult it will be to hold critical swing districts if they stay this unpopular with core constituencies like heartland farmers. That puts the House Republicans who represent rural areas in a real bind, because they have no good answers for Trump's betrayal of family farmers. Back in February, seven of Wisconsin's GOP lawmakers simply didn't show up for a community forum hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union. Running from your voters isn't a winning strategy.
Faced with the mounting political cost of his policy failures on rural Americans, Trump now promises that 'Changes are coming!' The millions of farmers who helped send him to the White House last year are done waiting.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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Atlantic
34 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Shame of Trump's Parade
Today—250 years since the Continental Army officially formed to fight for the independence of the American colonies against the British monarchy—marks a milestone in President Donald Trump's effort to politicize the U.S. military. Though they are rare, military parades have happened before in Washington, D.C. For the most part, these have been celebrations of military achievements, such as the end of a war. But today is also Trump's birthday, and what he and his supporters have planned is a celebration of Trump himself. A mark of a free society is that its public institutions, especially its military, represent the body politic and the freedom-enabling equal rights that structure civic life. If service members and the public begin to believe that the military is not neutral but is in fact the servant of MAGA, this will threaten the military's legitimacy and increase the likelihood of violent conflict between the military and the public. Today's events bring us one step closer to this disaster. I have seen the politicization of the military firsthand. Last month, I resigned my tenured position as a philosophy professor at West Point in protest of the dramatic changes the Trump administration is making to academic programs at military-service academies. Following an executive order from January, the Department of Defense banned most discussions of race and gender in the classroom. West Point applied this standard to faculty scholarship as well. As a result, my research agenda—I study the relationship between masculinity and war, among other things—was effectively off limits. I consider what the Trump administration is doing to the military-service academies as a profound violation of the military's political neutrality. That destructive ethos is the same one apparent in the parade scheduled for today. Before Trump was reelected, the Army had planned significant celebrations across the country to mark this day, including the release of a commemorative postage stamp and a visit to the International Space Station by an Army astronaut. But according to The New York Times, arrangements for today's D.C. event, unlike the other plans, began only this year. The day is scheduled to begin with a variety of family-friendly concerts, a meet and greet with NFL players, and military-fitness competitions, all on the National Mall. If all goes to plan, the celebrations will culminate with what organizers are calling a 'grand military parade' that starts near the Pentagon, crosses the Potomac River, and ends near the White House. The parade is anticipated to involve 6,700 active-duty soldiers and a massive display of Army equipment: dozens of M1A1 Abrams tanks and Stryker armored personnel carriers, along with more than 100 other land vehicles, 50 helicopters, and a B-25 bomber. Trump is scheduled to give remarks after the parade and receive a flag delivered from the air by the U.S. Army Parachute Team known as the Golden Knights. A fireworks show is set to follow later tonight. The organizers have made it abundantly clear that today's purpose is to directly laud Trump and his politics. In promotional materials, they tell us, 'Under President Trump's leadership, the Army has been restored to strength and readiness.' They credit his 'America First agenda' for military pay increases, enlarged weapons stockpiles, new technologies, and improvements in recruitment, declaring that he has 'ensured our soldiers have the tools and support they need to win on any battlefield.' Monica Crowley, the State Department's chief of protocol and a former Fox News host, went on Steve Bannon's podcast WarRoom to say that the concurrence of the U.S. Army's anniversary and Trump's birthday is 'providential.' She called it 'meant to be. Hand of God, for sure.' She added, 'It is really a gift, and we want to be sure that we celebrate in a manner that is fitting, not just of this extraordinary president but of our extraordinary country.' She also expressed hope that the crowd would serenade the president with 'Happy Birthday.' Clearly, Trump isn't merely the guest of honor; he is the reason for the party. During his first administration, members of Trump's own Cabinet often thwarted his efforts to corrupt the Pentagon. This time, Trump has appointed a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is willing to tear down the boundaries separating politics and the management of national defense. Trump and Hegseth claim to be purging the military of politicization instilled by previous administrations and resetting the DOD around the nonpartisan matter of readiness for war. But in reality, they have used this rationale as a cover to insert an unprecedented level of political partisanship into the military. Other events in recent months have pointed in this same direction. For instance, in February, the administration fired the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The only meaningful justification given for the move was Hegseth's claim that the fired lawyers might be roadblocks to the president's agenda—a frightening admission. In January, the administration banned transgender people from serving in the military, not because they allegedly pose a threat to unit cohesion or because their medical treatment is unusually expensive, but because they are supposedly bad people ('not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member'). At present, transgender soldiers who have met all performance standards are being discharged simply because of the administration's bigotry against them. The administration has also inserted its politics into all the military-service academies—the reason I left West Point last month. Trump and Hegseth have denied the validity of ideas that are taken seriously in a variety of disciplines and banned them from the classroom, including, as I noted above, matters pertaining to race and gender. Books and other works, most of which are by women and people of color, have been removed from the curriculum. The academic programs of the service academies are now structured around the Trump administration's ideological worldview. Faculty and cadets wonder if they are allowed to entertain perspectives inconsistent with the administration's politics. In May, Hegseth led an evangelical prayer service in the Pentagon's auditorium. Standing at a lectern with the Department of Defense seal, Hegseth led the audience in prayer to 'our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.' The main speaker at this service was Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Potteiger, of the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. This church restricts all leadership positions to men, declares homosexuality immoral, and asserts that women should not serve in combat. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a secretary of defense acknowledging his religious faith. What's objectionable is the use of his authority to push his personal religious views on subordinates, especially as the director of a major institution of the secular state. The president now routinely speaks to uniformed service members in his red MAGA hat, using his trademark rhetoric centering himself and belittling, even demonizing, his critics. He openly suggests a special alliance between him and the military. At Fort Bragg on Tuesday, for instance, Trump encouraged uniformed soldiers to cheer his political agenda and boo his enemies. This is all extremely dangerous. Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society. Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration's ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump's—or the Republican Party's—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.) But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump's efforts to politicize the military have been.
San Francisco Chronicle
38 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Donald Trump is losing. Here's how California can keep the pressure on
Californians are angry. They should be. President Donald Trump's militarized mass deportation policies aren't just thoughtless and cruel — they have, in many instances, been executed illegally. This includes targeting international college students with legal residence for their political expression. Four undocumented children in San Francisco were also among those rounded up, among them a 3-year-old, whose family was lawfully complying with a scheduled check-in with immigration authorities. Abundant evidence suggests racial profiling is part and parcel of the administration's strategy. Federal agents aren't simply doing the hard work of tracking down the immigrants with criminal records whom Trump has emphasized for deportation. Instead, they've fished for people en masse at places like Home Depot — sometimes masked and without visible identification — sweeping up citizens of color in the process. In some cases, Trump isn't deporting people back to their native lands. He has sent hundreds of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom had violated no other law than coming to the country without authorization, to prisons in places that are not their country of origin — including what could best be described as a gulag in El Salvador. In the fear and confusion that has ensued from these actions, criminals pretending to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are exploiting the chaos to attack vulnerable communities. And so Californians — and increasingly people across the nation — have taken to the streets in protest. The Constitution and the moral imperative are on their side. In response, Trump has sent thousands of federalized National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the streets of Los Angeles in a clear act of intimidation — claiming an insurrection, but notably not invoking the Insurrection Act statue that would give him the legal authority (and the checks and balances that come with it) to mobilize troops. When U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California attempted to publicly question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about these excesses and injustices, he was shoved and handcuffed by federal agents. It's a perilous time for American democracy. The threat of a descent into unchecked authoritarianism is real. Protestors are correct in their assessment that silence in the face of such tyranny is unacceptable. But as citizens of conscience take to the streets — particularly in California, where the undocumented migrant population is bearing the brunt of our nation's political war — there is something important they should keep in mind: Donald Trump is losing. In recent months, courts have shot down any number of his executive orders, along with his targeting of international students with legal residence. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Thursday that Trump's federalization and deployment of California National Guard troops was 'illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.' The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will consider an appeal of Breyer's ruling on Tuesday. Beyond the legal realm, Trump's economic policies are floundering. His 'big, beautiful' budget is in disarray after an embarrassing public fallout with the world's richest man. His tariff negotiations have gone nowhere. His foreign policy bluster has resulted in heightened global instability. The American people are beginning to widely see Trump for what he is: a failure Only 38% of registered voters approve of his performance, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. And on immigration, 57% disapprove of his policies. Perhaps recognizing the turning tide, Trump has wobbled on many of his more aggressive stances. After calling for an all-out ban on Chinese students, he suggested this week that he would actually like 500,000 to come to the United States. He further said he had changed his views on migrant farm workers. 'You go into a farm and you look at people — they've been there for 20, 25 years, and they've worked great, and the owner of the farm loves them, and everything else and then you're supposed to throw them out,' Trump said Thursday at the White House. He ultimately backed down from these positions. But the flip-flopping shows his weakness — and the reality that better federal immigration policy, not crackdowns, are needed if we want to better meet the country's workforce needs. The question now for Californians is how to keep the pressure on Trump and defend the rights of immigrants without turning against one another or giving the Trump administration the kind of public spectacle it craves. While Trump is weak, he remains a master manipulator. He has already tried to leverage scenes of carnage stemming from a handful of bad actors at the protests in Los Angeles. California cannot afford to give him more fodder. That danger runs particularly high in Los Angeles, where Trump's federalized troops add an element of unpredictability. 'It's like bringing in a new player to a game and not giving them the playbook,' former Houston police chief and crowd control expert Art Acevedo told the editorial board. 'It's counterproductive. It's theater. And it's not operationally sound.' Acevedo, who drew nationwide praise for his handling of the 2020 protests in George Floyd's native Houston in the wake of his murder by police, said that the best way to protect the public's First Amendment rights is through local organization and communication. Here in San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie has been criticized for his reluctance to even say Trump's name in public. But San Francisco doesn't need him to make fiery speeches. What it needs, Acevedo said, is for officials and the police department to keep lines of communication open with activists and protest leaders and to signal their compassion. San Franciscans are more than capable of speaking for their city. They need to trust that they will be safely empowered to do so. That does not preclude the necessity of weeding out bad actors. Trump is weak. With the discipline to maintain the moral high ground, he can be defeated. As Michael Ansara, who as a student helped organize the March on Washington in 1965, concluded in a recent op-ed: Protesting against Trump is good. Organizing against him is better.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Protesting in Michigan this weekend? These are your rights
With a Washington military parade, President Donald Trump's birthday and growing opposition to immigration raids in Los Angeles, organizers have planned protests around the country for this weekend. Protests have been a part of the United States since the founding of the country. The U.S. Constitution guarantees rights, but that doesn't always mean the police will respect them or that a court will uphold them if they're violated, according to the National Lawyers Guild's "Know Your Rights — a guide for protesters." "When you are protesting or having any interaction with law enforcement, asserting your rights does not usually mean that the police will respect your rights or change how they are treating you. However, by using your rights ... you can make it harder for police to use your own statements or anything found on you during a search as evidence against you during a trial." Public property. No permit is necessary to march on public sidewalks, as long as car and pedestrian traffic is not obstructed, according to the ACLU of Michigan. Police may ask demonstrators without a permit to move to the side of a sidewalk to let people pass or for other safety reasons. According to the ACLU, the rights of protesters and organizers are strongest in "traditional public forums," such as streets, sidewalks and parks. People have the right to speak out in front of government buildings as long as they are not blocking access or interfering with operations. The rules for speech on private property are determined by the property owner. Counter-protesters also have the right to be present and voice displeasure within the vicinity of a different group, although they do not have a right to physically disrupt an event or drown out the speakers they are protesting, according to the ACLU. Some Michigan cities, including Detroit, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, ask large gatherings that have the potential to obstruct traffic obtain a permit with up to 70 days' notice. The National Lawyers Guild recommends trying to end law enforcement interaction as quickly as possible, as well as stating your rights out loud when asked questions. 'If a cop is speaking to you on the street, ask: 'Am I free to go?' If they say yes, you should leave, if you can do that safely. "If the cop says anything other than yes, follow up with: 'Am I being detained?' If they say anything other than yes, then say that you do not want to talk further and leave immediately,' according to NLG's Know Your Rights guide. If a police officer asks a question, a protester does not have to answer and can let the officer know they will remain silent and want to speak to a lawyer. Statements you make to people who are not police can be held against you, according to the NLG. In Michigan, police cannot ask you to provide your name or other identity information unless you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. This right is not the same in every state. Police are allowed to pat down the outside of your clothing without consent, but they need your permission or a warrant to search beyond that, according to NLG's guide. To decline a search, the guide recommends using the standard legal phrasing, 'I do not consent.' Michigan's ACLU recommends asking for a lawyer immediately, remaining silent and not signing or agreeing to anything without a lawyer. If a defendant hasn't hired a lawyer, they can ask for a court-appointed public defender if they can't afford it, according to Michigan Legal Help from the Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan State Bar Association. If you are arrested, you will be searched as part of the arrest process, according to NLG. Police officers may lie to you about having evidence, deals to drop charges, overstating penalties for crimes, the timeline of your detention, and whether they are recording, according to the guide. Lying to a government agent is sometimes a criminal offence, while remaining silent until speaking to a lawyer is not, according to the NLG. When in a public space, people have the right to photograph anything in plain view, including federal buildings and police, according to Michigan's ACLU. On private property, property owners may set their own rules. Police may not confiscate or demand to view photos or videos without a warrant. They may not delete data under any circumstances, according to the ACLU. Police may order citizens to stop recording if they are "truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations, but video recording from a safe distance is not interfering," according to the ACLU. [ Help us make the Free Press better for you. ] According to Michigan's ACLU, police may not disperse a protest unless there is "clear danger of a riot, disorder, interference with traffic, or other immediate threat to public safety." "Protesters must receive a clear and detailed notice of a dispersal order, including how much time they have to disperse, consequences for failing to disperse, and what exit route they can follow before they may be arrested or charged with any crime," according to the ACLU. Officers must give "reasonable opportunity to comply, including sufficient time and a clear exit path," according to the ACLU. The ACLU of Michigan recommends getting contact information of witnesses, taking photos of injuries, and writing down everything you can remember, including officers' names, badge and patrol car numbers. With this information, you can file a written complaint to a civilian complaint board, police department or agency, according to the ACLU. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Protest rights in Michigan: What to know ahead of No Kings events
