Border czar Tom Homan says there will be 'no amnesty' for undocumented farmworkers

Politico

10-07-2025

Still, the president has suggested his administration will come up with a program that farmers and agriculture producers can use to ensure they have the labor they need.
Homan's insistence that there will be no amnesty — a line White House officials and Cabinet secretaries are keen to repeat — captures the broader tension playing out inside the Trump administration, as the president's top officials try to square the need for labor in an industry crucial to the country's food supply with the White House's aggressive immigration agenda. Adding to the challenge is that Trump has appeared sympathetic to both sides.
Homan said the president is listening to 'everybody' but pushed back against Trump allies — including podcast host Joe Rogan — who have questioned arresting and deporting undocumented people who are working jobs many Americans don't want to do.
'People who say, 'don't arrest workers,' they don't understand the whole ugly underbelly of illegal immigration the way I do,' Homan said, citing his work investigating labor trafficking, sex trafficking and illegal labor practices.
'People need to understand the whole world of illegal migration before they form an opinion because they don't know, for instance, what I know, what I've seen,' he continued, adding that he talks to the president often, sharing these experiences.
Administration officials and Republican allies in Congress have discussed changing the H-2A visa program and providing undocumented workers already in the U.S. a path to legal worker status, according to an administration official and two Republican Hill aides, granted anonymity to relay private policy discussions.
Expanding access to the H-2A program has long been popular in GOP circles, but wouldn't resolve the labor challenges facing an industry that relies on an estimated 320,000 undocumented laborers. Trump has also publicly floated a 'touchback' program, allowing the workers to leave and reenter through a legal pathway — a solution that would face steep MAGA blowback.