President Donald Trump, a super reasonable guy, is against immigrants living and working in the United States without proper documentation and a very good reason; in a proposal unveiled last week, he advocated restricting immigration to sliver of highly-skilled workers. But lest we think the president is heartless, he does have concerns: He is deeply worried about humble business owners, who, thanks to his policies, may now be deprived of a steady stream of immigrants to carry out cheap, exploitive labor.
In an interview with Steve Hilton filmed last week and aired on Fox News on Sunday night, Trump revealed the depths of his generosity and empathy, arguing that, his administration is thinking deeply about the poor farmers whose profit margins might take a hit without millions of undocumented immigrants to employ. Trump told Hilton that he wasn’t so sure about incorporating E-Verify, a program that allows employers to check employees work eligibility, into his immigration plan because rigorous background checks might make life pretty tough for some business owners:
“The one problem is E-Verify is so tough that in some cases, like farmers, they’re not—they’re not equipped for E-Verify. I mean I’d say that’s against Republicans. A lot of the Republicans say you go through an E-Verify. I used it when I built the hotel down the road on Pennsylvania Avenue. I use a very strong E-Verify system. And we would go through 28 people—29, 30 people before we found one that qualified. So it’s a very tough thing to ask a farmer to go through that. So in a certain way, I speak against myself, but you also have to have a world of some practicality.”
These theoretical farmers—who after all, Trump later reminds Hilton, voted for him—are important Americans, unlike the undocumented laborers that keep their businesses running. Wouldn’t want to mess with their ability to make a living! The election is coming up, after all.