CHICAGO — To Jose Abel Garcia, a Guatemalan immigrant in the Los Angeles area, President Donald Trump’s latest promise to expand deportations in Democratic-led cities doesn’t change much.

The 38-year-old garment worker said Trump’s doubling down on Democratic strongholds while pausing immigration arrests at restaurants, hotels and farms doesn’t spare workers who are simply trying to make rent.

“He just talks,” Garcia said. “The raids keep happening and it’s going to be hard for him to follow through on that because he isn’t acting alone.”

In recent days Trump has vowed to shift immigration enforcement away from political allies and toward political foes, prioritizing deportations in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and cities at “the core of the Democrat Power Center.” At the same time, he’s reversed course and paused arrests in industries that heavily rely on a foreign-born workforce.

Garcia and other immigrants say, either way, fears remain high in their communities, while experts note the Trump administration’s pullback on work site immigration enforcement is a lesson other administrations learned long ago. Meanwhile, Democrats and activists insist Trump’s moves are calculated and something they’ll use as a rallying cry.

political fight

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been locked in a widening dispute with the Trump administration, said the motivation behind singling out Democratic cities is clear.

“Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law and consolidate power,” Newsom posted Monday on X. “It’s illegal and we will not let it stand.”

Trump again fixed on New York and Chicago on Monday while pointing to Los Angeles demonstrations against his administration policies, and adding many of “those people weren’t from LA, they were from California.”

“I want to focus on the cities,” he said at the Group of Seven Summit in Canada.

The Trump administration has said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least daily 3,000 arrests, up from about 650 daily during the first months of Trump’s second term. Already, the president and his allies have targeted so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” with splashy live-streamed arrests, lawsuits and summoning mayors and governors to testify at the Capitol.

Worksite arrests

Pulling back on worksite enforcement is new for Trump, but not in recent history.

Going after employers on immigration compliance has been a controversial issue, particularly in industries that rely immigrant labor. For instance, nearly half of those in meatpacking are thought to be born abroad.

Under a 1996 immigration law, the Clinton administration investigated hiring practices to weed out employees without proper U.S. work authorization and to punish employers. But it didn’t last long. Investigations took months. Workers were afraid to come to work. Some farmers complained their crops were suffering. Elected officials began to intervene.

“It pretty much stopped,” said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was the predecessor to ICE.

left baffled

Still, Trump’s approach confused many.

“On one hand, he will stay away from certain industries and at the same time double down on Chicago,” said Lawrence Benito, head of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “I’m not sure how to reconcile those two comments.”

He said the group would continue to help immigrants understand their rights in the case of ICE arrests.

U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat, accused Trump of trying to silence dissent.

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social site about cracking down on Democratic cities, Trump said, without any evidence, that Democrats were using immigrants living in the country without legal status to steal elections.