U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that farmers will be able to petition the federal government to retain some farmworkers in the U.S. illegally, provided the workers leave the country and return with legal status.
Trump's comments during his Cabinet meeting are, though vague, the most detail the administration has provided on the fate of the nation's farmworkers without legal status - who make up half the farm sector's workforce - under his plan for mass deportations.
Farm industry groups have warned that deporting large numbers of agricultural workers would grind the food system to a halt. In addition to farming, many workers without legal status are also employed in the meat and dairy industries.
"We're going to work with farmers that, if they have strong recommendations for their farms, for certain people, that we're going to let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process, a legal process. We have to take care of our farmers and hotels and various places where they need the people," Trump said.
"A farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people saying, they're great, they're working hard, we're going to slow it down a little bit for them and then we're going to ultimately bring them back. They'll go out, they're going to come back as legal workers," he said.
The White House and the Department of Agriculture did not respond to requests to clarify the policy or when it will be implemented.
During his first administration, Trump promised the farm sector that deportations would not affect agricultural workers, but has made no such promise in this term.
Immigrant farmworkers prepared for the Trump administration by assigning guardians to their children in the case of their detention and taking other precautions.