Trump’s Pledge To Authorize Cheap Foreign Labor Is Amnesty

“Mass Deportations Now.”

It wasn’t just a slogan on signs — it was a rallying cry that galvanized millions of voters. The promise was the restoration of American sovereignty through the removal of all illegal aliens — not just the violent ones. Americans understand that national unity requires assimilation, and assimilation is impossible when millions pour in illegally and remain indefinitely. The message that won the election was not “Mass Deportations, But Only For The Worst Offenders.”

But on Thursday President Donald Trump posted the following 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. In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

He later doubled down on the comments during a press briefing.

“[Farmers] have very good workers; they’ve worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. … 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.”

But sovereignty doesn’t yield to staffing shortages. American immigration policy should never be dictated by the labor needs of employers, especially not in industries built around a permanent, low-wage migrant workforce. And while there may be a legitimate case for limited, legal, seasonal migration in agriculture, allowing a worker shortage to become the justification for lawbreaking and mass amnesty reduces citizenship or legal status to a commodity and the nation to marketplace.

As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson pointed out in a post on X, “This is amnesty. … [Trump is] also making a declaration that businesses that openly flout US immigration law (for decades!) will face no consequences. This isn’t how you end illegal immigration. It’s how you entrench it.”

Trump’s retreat is not just a tactical error — it’s a betrayal of the moment. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct the crisis created by the Biden administration. Caving to the demands of farmers and hoteliers doesn’t just undermine that goal — it sends a signal to activists and rioters that America’s sovereignty is up for negotiation.

But sovereignty is nonnegotiable. America exists to serve its citizens — not foreign nationals and not the preferences of politically connected industries. A government that does not prioritize the interests of Americans is a government that has lost its purpose. No nation can preserve its sovereignty — or its identity — while permitting mass migration on the scale we’ve witnessed.

When millions of foreigners arrive, assimilation to the degree necessary to preserve America becomes impossible. Instead of adopting the American way of life, many replicate the nations they left, forming parallel societies defined by different languages, cultures, and allegiances, as has happened in Europe and the U.S.

Simply put, no country can withstand the consequences of mass migration. This isn’t about who is a hard worker or who fills a labor gap. If America is merely an economic opportunity zone, then Trump’s concessions make perfect sense. But if America is a country — a real nation with a shared history, culture, and people — then our immigration policy must reflect that reality. No one who sneaks into the country illegally should be rewarded with legal status or amnesty, no matter how useful he is to an agricultural conglomerate or a hotel chain. This is not just a question of identity either; it’s also a matter of national security.

As Alexander Hamilton warned in 1802, “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

Mass migration — especially illegal and unassimilated — doesn’t just weaken that national sentiment. It obliterates it. It replaces national unity with fragmentation and ultimately ethnic conflict. Just look at Los Angeles, where the rioters aren’t waving American flags — they’re burning them, while raising the flags of foreign nations in defiance. A republic cannot survive when its foundations are being eroded by mass migration without assimilation — and it then chooses to reward those very same illegal aliens.

That’s why this moment matters. Trump’s retreat — if indeed that’s what it is — is not a minor policy shift. It’s a signal that the immigration lobby can dictate the terms of American sovereignty, that lawbreakers can negotiate, and that our country is for sale to the highest bidder — the bidder right now being farmers and the hospitality industry. But America is not a business. It’s a people — a people who voted for mass deportations.

Americans voted for Trump on the promise of mass deportations. He should keep his promise — all of it.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2