2 days ago
Trump acknowledges deportation agenda is hurting hospitality, promises ‘changes are coming'
Trump owns a number of hotels in the U.S., including one in Las Vegas. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)
Complaints from the farm and hotel industries that President Donald Trump's mass deportation effort is costing them valued workers will prompt change, Trump promised Thursday in a post on Truth Social.
'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,' wrote Trump, who owns a number of hotels in the U.S., including one in Las Vegas.
'It's a very simple thing to say, 'we're going to secure the border and we're going to deport violent criminals and terrorists.' Everybody agrees with that,' Culinary Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said during a phone interview Thursday. 'When you bring in the Marines to arrest dishwashers, that backlash is exploding in industry, among citizens and voters. If there's one thing this president knows how to do it's to backtrack quickly when he gets a backlash.'
The U.S. employed more than 782,000 farm workers in 2023, according to the government. About two-thirds are immigrants, according to the government.
The leisure and hospitality industries in the U.S. employ some 14 million people, and almost one-third are immigrants, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.
Nevada's hospitality and leisure industries employed 368,400 people as of April, according to the Federal Reserve.
'These industries are run by very smart people, and they understand that the immigrant workforce powers this economy,' said Pappageorge.
Pappageorge said he's not bothered by a carve-out from the deportation policy for two industries, suggesting agriculture and hospitality are just the first two to the table.
Gov. Joe Lombardo, who endorsed Trump and was endorsed by Trump, did not respond to inquiries about whether he's reached out to the White House regarding the president's deportation plan and disruption to the labor force.
The Nevada Resort Association, which represents casino hotels in Nevada, referred the Current to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
'Along with our members, we continue to communicate with Congress and the administration about the importance of building a strong hospitality and tourism workforce,' the AHLA, which represents 32,000 properties, said in a statement. 'As an industry, we are committed to strict compliance with labor laws and immigration regulations, including those focused on recruitment, background checks and employment verification.'
The hospitality industry is already reeling from a precipitous drop in travel resulting from Trump's trade wars, Bloomberg reported last week.
'The AHLA urges Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and strengthen the H-2B visa program, which allows temporary non-agricultural work in the U.S., and the J-1 visa program, which allows participation in exchange programs,' says the AHLA website. 'We believe that the United States can have both an effective and welcoming legal immigration process that enables hotels and other businesses to meet our workforce needs, while also protecting our national security.'
How Trump plans to exclude workers from the two industries from deportation is unknown.
'They could do this by prosecutorial discretion possibly,' said Michael Kagan, director of UNLV's Immigration Clinic. Immigrations and Customer Enforcement (ICE) has the option to close cases and allow individuals to avoid deportation.
