President Donald Trump changed his tone Thursday, suggesting that he no longer wants agents focusing on raiding farming and hospitality industries. NBC 7’s Jeanette Quezada got local reaction.
Hospitality is a strong driver of the San Diego economy. Last year, the tourism industry generated $22 billion to the San Diego region, but some worry the industry could be negatively impacted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that are happening nationwide.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump changed his tone, suggesting that he no longer wants agents focusing on raiding farming and hospitality industries.
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WATCH HERE"Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know they have very good workers. They've worked for me for 20 years," Trump said. "They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great. We have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all of their people and send them back because they don't have, maybe what they're supposed to have. Maybe not."
Brigette Browning is president of Unite Here Local 30 and represents 6,000 members who work in the hospitality industry.
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SIGN UP “This is not the America that I grew up loving,” Browning said. “Dishwashing, cleaning hotel rooms — our economy cannot exist without them. They are not criminals. They came to this country because they wanted a better life for their families."
She said the ICE raids have made many of them fearful of going to work.
“It’s a very, very dark time. It’s terrifying for our members. Even our members that have papers are terrified that if they go to their kid's school, church or they go to the market, that they’re going to be picked up because they look like undocumented workers,” Browning said.
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Moises Santiago is one of those workers. He travels from San Luis Obispo every week to sell produce to San Diego farmers markets. He said he knows many farmworkers who have stopped showing up to work because they fear ICE agents will be out in the fields.
“I’m worried we’ll lose our harvest because without them we produce our harvest really,” Santiago said.
The Trump administration has not released details into what type of policy changes could occur as a result of his post on X.
Although Trump made vague remarks about “changes coming” to the immigration policy, Browning worries they won’t protect farmers and hospitality workers.
“I think he’s worried about his rich friends that are worried about their pocketbooks," Browning said. "I don’t think he cares about hotel workers or farmworkers at all. If he did, he would never be treating them the way he’s treating them."
