OK, all you fat fuckers in red states, get off your ass and into the fields......

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

President Donald Trump has suggested his administration will come up with a program that farmers can use to ensure they have the labor they need.

By Myah Ward

President Donald Trump is soliciting a range of opinions on how to deal with undocumented farm labor, a question that pits two important MAGA constituencies against one another.

The discussions are still in the early stages, border czar Tom Homan told POLITICO’s Dasha Burns during The Conversation, but he noted that the departments of Labor, State and Agriculture are all working on a policy solution. Homan insisted that there will be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm workers and said the administration will not “greenlight” businesses “knowingly breaking immigration laws.”

“No one hires an illegal alien out of the goodness of their heart,” Homan said. “They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, and undercut their competition with U.S. citizen employees. … And many, many illegal aliens do not pay taxes. They’re paid under the table. The employers don’t pay employee taxes, they don’t pay unemployment insurance. So they’re cheating the system.”

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.

The conflict over undocumented farm labor bubbled up last month, when the president temporarily paused ICE raids on farms following a conversation with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins over industry concerns. The move, which the president later walked back, infuriated MAGA loyalists and immigration hawks — many of whom blamed Rollins for the shift.

It flared again this week when MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk said the “ruling class” was pushing Trump to offer amnesty to farmworkers. The president and his top Cabinet officials have since declared that there will be “no amnesty” from mass deportations for migrant farmworkers.

Inside the administration, while Rollins is viewed as more sympathetic to farmers’ woes, Homan, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller are opposed to giving some businesses a pass on enforcement. When asked about that push and pull, Homan said it’s beneficial to hear different perspectives and ideas.

“I would rather have a room full of different opinions,” he said, “than everybody coming in and just being a yes man.”