Trump Immigration Officials Seek to Mend Frayed Ties With Business as Arrests Spike

The Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Markwayne Mullin is cultivating a relationship with business groups whose concerns about losing workers to aggressive immigration enforcement had been rebuffed by former secretary Kristi L. Noem.

Earlier this month, DHS officials met at the agency’s Washington headquarters with the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major trade associations that depend on immigrant labor, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting, which has not been previously reported.

It was the first such meeting to be reported since President Donald Trump reentered the White House. Business groups say they have been trying to gain a foothold at the agency since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests began to spike last year.

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Immigration arrests have more than quadrupled since Trump took office, driven by a dramatic increase in traffic and neighborhood stops, workplace sweeps and other public arrests, according to the Deportation Data Project. As a result, industries including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, health care and elder care say they are reeling from shortages in jobs critical to the economy.

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Mullin brought Senate staffers with ties to the business community to DHS, business lobbyists said, and his staff quickly set about trying to mend relations.

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DHS officials declined to acknowledge a shift in approach but said they are trying to keep an open line to business and other moderate wings of the GOP.

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However, the spokesperson said, “Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to protect public safety, national security, and economic stability while rescuing individuals who may be victims of labor trafficking or exploitation.”

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Mullin now faces the challenge of proving that he can deliver on Trump’s core campaign pledge to deport a million people a year while avoiding the widespread backlash that helped sink Noem’s tumultuous reign.

In recent weeks, DHS has sought to appease business groups even as it has dramatically ramped up arrests. Through the first 12 days of July, ICE is on pace to arrest the most people in a single month since Trump reentered the White House, with an average of more than 1,400 people a day. Meanwhile, the agency has agreed to partially walk back a plan to force green-card applicants to return to their countries of origin, which tech leaders said would severely impact their workforce. And it has agreed to open a guest-worker visa program to the dairy industry. Both actions followed intense lobbying by industry groups.

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While Noem’s advisers spoke occasionally with business leaders, they often dismissed requests, emphasizing that they were laser focused on removing undocumented workers, several business lobbyists said.

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Trump, who is known to take phone calls with and host dinners for business executives, hasn’t been immune to business backlash since immigration arrests exploded in 2025.

Last June, during high-profile operations targeting worksites, the administration announced that farms, restaurants and hotels would be spared further raids. The policy change — aimed at blunting potentially severe economic and political fallout — appears to remain largely intact a year later, pushing ICE agents toward neighborhood arrests and traffic stops to meet their deportation goals.

But while certain industries have been shielded from workplace raids, other are being pummeled. In South Texas, raids on construction sites have mushroomed since Mullin replaced Noem, builders say.

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