A group of six Republican lawmakers from California is urging President Donald Trump to recalibrate the nation’s immigration priorities — calling for a sharper focus on deporting criminal illegal immigrants while also proposing a pathway to legal status for long-term undocumented residents.
The lawmakers argue that current federal enforcement tactics are creating unnecessary fear in workplaces and adversely affecting employees who are in the country legally. In their letter to Trump, the lawmakers urged the administration to scale back broad Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and instead concentrate enforcement efforts on individuals with serious criminal convictions.
They advocated for a more strategic approach that distinguishes between violent offenders and otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years. “We urge you to direct ICE and DHS to focus their enforcement operations on criminal immigrants, and when possible to avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace,” they wrote.
At the same time, the lawmakers are advocating for broader immigration reforms to address labor shortages across key industries. They called for an expansion of the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, which allow temporary foreign workers to fill jobs in agriculture and other sectors, arguing that current caps are outdated and hinder economic growth.
The American Farm Bureau reports that approximately 384,900 H-2A visas were issued recently, while the H-2B program remains limited to just 66,000 annually. The lawmakers argue that California’s ongoing labor shortage highlights the urgent need for immigration reform.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state had 659,000 job openings as of March 2025 — a figure they say reflects critical gaps in the workforce that could be alleviated through visa program expansion and more targeted enforcement policies. Meanwhile, California’s May unemployment rate stood at 5.3 percent, leaving more than a million residents out of work.