FRESNO, Calif. — After months of anxiety over the possibility that mass deportations could cripple the San Joaquin Valley’s multibillion-dollar agriculture industry, President Trump has signaled that he may be open to relaxing the rules for some undocumented workers.

During an April 10 cabinet meeting, Trump said he would be open to giving undocumented farmworkers and hotel workers an opportunity to work legally if they return to their home country and then come back to the United States.

The president was referencing the self-deportation process that his administration has been encouraging.

“We are also going to work with farmers, that if they have strong recommendations from their farms for certain people, 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,” he said.

Trump added, “We have to take care of our farmers and hotels and, you know, various places where they use, where they need the people. And we’re going to be working with you very carefully on that.”

“We are going to slow it down a little bit for them,” the president said.

The president’s comments, while far from official policy, showed a willingness to provide some relief to the agriculture industry that for decades has depended on a legion of immigrant labor, nearly half not legal residents.

Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno, said he was encouraged by the president’s comments, but added that farmers and labor advocates need to step up their efforts to work out a plan.

Cunha is working on organizing a meeting of elected officials, labor leaders, and agriculture groups to try and hammer out a plan for how this may work. He hopes to have the meeting together within two to three weeks.

“I appreciate the president talking about this, and not saying that he is going to deport everyone who is illegal, I give him credit for that,” Cunha said. “But now he needs to take the next step and get this done. We need a solution that everyone can feel good about.”

Since Trump took office in January, farmers and workers have been anxiously anticipating that the president would make good on his promise to deport the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants. He said he would first start with those with criminal records and members of criminal gangs.

But Valley worker’s nerves were rattled on Jan. 7 when a team of U.S. Border Patrol agents swept into Kern County and made 78 arrests, and only one of those arrested had a criminal record, according to an investigation by Cal Matters.

“People were in fear,” said Jorge Rodriguez, a farm labor contractor in Fresno and Tulare counties. “And we are talking about good people, good workers, people who pay their taxes and have built relationships within their own communities.”

Although the fear and anxiety is still there, Rodriguez said he is still able to employ at least 600 workers who are busy preparing for the region’s upcoming table grape harvest.

Workers are selectively thinning leafy shoots from the vine to improve fruit quality and optimize exposure to the sun.

By mid-summer, Rodriguez’s grape-picking crews will swell to about 1,100 workers.

“And that is just my company,” he said.

At peak harvest in California, an estimated 500,000 workers are needed during the summer months.

Farmworker advocates agree that a change in the nation’s immigration policy is needed, but it also needs to be more than a band-aid approach.

Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, said “vague comments to help our farmers and hotels have no detail and no factual basis.”

“If there is a real desire to protect the farm workers who are already here and doing the work — not just replace them with easily exploited non-immigrant guest workers — then Congress should pass bipartisan legislation that provides farm workers a path to citizenship,“ she said in an email.

Michael Marsh, president and chief executive officer of the National Council of Agriculture Employers, said he is also encouraged by the president’s comments, adding that more discussions need to happen.

Marsh has already begun talking with members of Congress and their staffs about providing some protections for undocumented workers.

“We are excited about the potential, particularly on the legislative front,” Marsh said. “Because having a Republican President support the notion that these are people who really are essential to our operations, farming and ranching operations, that’s a big win, in my estimation. But the devil’s gonna be in the details.”

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