While the battle between ICE and the people rages on the streets of Minneapolis, another quiet immigration-related battle is brewing in Washington and local oligarchy across the country.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on suspected immigrants continues to exacerbate labor shortages in many sectors of the economy. At the same time, the burgeoning police state is proving to be President Trump’s biggest beneficiary in surveillance technology and the private prison industry. But there may be a way to satisfy capital on both sides of this line, and we appear to be approaching a cliff.
Before we turn to the final part of the transition to a new system of capital-labor relations, let’s first look at who is being hurt and who is being helped by the ICE state.
winner
They belong to the technology sector and have a large presence in the government. Some of the largest include Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft provide ICE with the digital backbone for its data and surveillance operations. Palantir has hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for a data platform that integrates and analyzes information for agents to search, link, and target. But the company’s influence appears to be much greater, as it plays a leading role in the partnership with ICE that brings the hybrid warfare and terrorism that the US helped bring back to Gaza.
There is no doubt that the military technology sector is pleased with the fact that ICE has increased arms spending by 600 percent compared to 2024.
It’s still unclear which companies are trying to take down ICE’s facial recognition software. The private prison industry is also doing better than ever. ICE has been a big backer of President Trump’s campaign, benefiting as the number of ICE detainees rises to a record number of more than 68,000 people. This number is expected to continue to increase, and the number of inmates in private prisons is expected to rise to over several billion.
There are also:
On the losing side—for now.
Here are some recent examples of how “old” capital, such as construction, hospitality, and agriculture, is being stolen by ICE’s rampage.
ICE arrests/kidnappings and the fear they permeate will hurt Texas’ construction industry, potentially slowing the homebuilding industry and driving up prices.
Tyson Foods, whose workforce is 35% immigrant, is battling shareholders who want to force the company to disclose the financial risks posed by the ICE administration.
Asked about the issue in June, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that the administration’s policies toward black and brown people were one of the factors slowing economic growth.
Shortly after Powell’s comments, a Dallas Fed study showed that “immigration” policies could reduce U.S. economic growth by almost 1 percentage point in 2025.
A January study by the neoliberal Brookings Institution estimated that net immigration in 2025 will be between -10,000 and -295,000, the first negative move in at least half a century. Absent a major shift in policy, they expect the same to happen this year, with continued downward pressure on the labor force, consumer spending and gross domestic product (GDP).
RSS Inc. laments that “deportations are creating staffing problems for strikes” across the country. (Union readers, keep an eye out for opportunities):
Currently, healthcare, hospitality, logistics, and even emergency services are experiencing severe disruption due to a decline in labor supply. The result is a labor crisis that affects not only economic growth but also national productivity, supply chain stability, and public safety.
Neoconservative Jennifer Rubin declares it’s time for big business to stand up to the administration:
If companies don’t want to see their job market shrink or lose the stability of an independent central bank under the weight of a violent and overreaching immigration crackdown, they should start sharing their views publicly and with the Republicans who have aligned themselves behind President Trump.
Democrats should try to please and pay President Trump, but they should also remind him that a passive attitude won’t work in the long run. Their silence in the face of violent immigration raids that promise to paralyze cities, freeze economic activity and increase crime will not help their cause, nor will it endear them to Democrats, who are poised to capture at least one chamber of Congress.
Why aren’t American companies heeding Rubin’s call?
Perhaps they are simply playing a waiting game, hoping that the Democrats will take over Trump after the midterm elections.
Perhaps their shy attitude is indicative of the new economy.
What could go wrong?
👉AI-related investments drove overall US GDP growth in the first half of 2025: 📊👇🎩 @FT
👉 Most of the consumption growth in 2025 was driven by the richest 10% of Americans.
👉The same Americans own most of the tech stocks.
🧐And when the AI boom begins… pic.twitter.com/xpnUQqgRar
— Richard Baldwin (@BaldwinRE) January 5, 2026
How much power does old capital have in the face of a massive AI bubble in which inflators play the most important role in the regime?
Finally, relief will likely come to the industries most affected by the ICE state.
Looking at the long-term trajectory of the government’s project to redesign the nation’s workforce, there is reason for old capital to participate.
Seek more “guest” workers
During Trump 1.0, the temporary work visa program steadily expanded by a total of 13 percent, and he used the coronavirus emergency to make it happen.
During the pandemic, his administration issued a series of emergency measures to strengthen H-2A and H-2B. [guest worker] Visas are more flexible and employer friendly. Because the workers were considered “essential workers,” they were allowed to stay longer, effectively freezing wages for H-2A workers.
What Trump 2.0 has done is effectively orchestrate a new crisis for essential workers, and there are signs that guest workers may once again be the solution.
Let’s go back to Minnesota. However, it does not address street fighting between ICE and the general public. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Gopher State recently declared, “It’s time to get this done. Sometimes breakthroughs are found when things are at their worst. We have to find those breakthroughs now.”
Klobuchar is talking about “reforming” the guest worker program. More from Capital Press:
Klobuchar recently said she was able to find “common ground” on the issue in a meeting with several “very conservative members of Congress” because there is a strong economic incentive to reform immigration laws. “You’re right about how we want to feed the world. We want to have strong businesses, and that requires a smart immigration system that accepts workers. We can’t always equate border policies that have to be secure with the economic needs of farmers and ranchers.”
What changes should be made to the guest worker program? Well, Klobuchar and the “very conservative” senators didn’t say exactly, but we can make an educated guess since they have met with the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has consistently pushed for lower wages and less regulation for guest workers.
Additionally, the meat processing industry is also seeking access to H-2A agricultural guest workers. Until now, the country has relied on H-2B guest non-agricultural workers, but the H-2A program is unique in that it is the only program without a cap on the number of foreign workers it can hire.
Greg Shell, a legal aid attorney with the Southern Florida Immigration Office, told Sentient Media:
“We’re going to see this continued growth in H-2A, and we’re going to see pressure elsewhere as non-farm jobs look to attract more workers.”
In addition, the meat packing industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, lawmakers, and agricultural industry groups are pursuing an agricultural guest worker program that would grant year-round visas. Currently, it is seasonal, which translates to up to 10 months per year. Klobuchar’s comments are noteworthy because the change would require approval from Congress.
Returning to Trump 1.0’s pandemic response, Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall rightly says these steps are necessary to avoid food shortages like those seen during the coronavirus era.
Of course, Trump is also participating. Zippy said he was “amazed” by President Trump’s breadth of knowledge on the issue and believed the president recognized the economic impact of the labor shortage.
I’m sure he does. Trump is very fond of his facility’s “guest workers.”
The government has already reduced the salaries of agricultural guest workers. Recall the following from November, courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute.
The Trump administration plans to reduce wages for all agricultural workers by lowering the minimum wage paid to seasonal agricultural workers in the H-2A visa program. It is estimated that wage rate reductions implemented by the Department of Labor (DOL) could reduce the annual wages of more than 350,000 H-2A farmworkers by a total of more than $2 billion, or between 26% and 32% of wages. These deep wage cuts for H-2A workers would put downward pressure on the wages of U.S. farmworkers, reducing their total annual wages by about $3 billion (up to 9% of total wages).
Let’s summarize.
The government aggressively pursues foreign-born workers who have no legal status here but have lived and worked here, in some cases for decades.
It is trying to exclude people who do not have immigration status linked to employment, such as those on temporary protection status or humanitarian parole. These people primarily come from countries that the United States has been involved in destroying through economic warfare or more violent wars.
This has led to labor shortages in certain industries. Therefore, there is currently a movement to bring in guest workers, for whom employers have greater control, pay lower wages, and find it difficult or impossible to form a union.
Even the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security have admitted in the past that:[guest] Workers face structural disincentives to reporting or leaving abusive conditions and often lack the power to enforce their rights in the face of exploitative employment conditions. ”
What are the implications? Here’s one:
Now imagine that even more sectors like this provided the model of capital-labor relations that capital desired. That is the fundamental change that is occurring under the thugs of ICE who are terrorizing the country. From Sentient Media:
This expansion of the H-2A system is expected to have a significant impact on the future of the workforce in the food production sector. The visa program, which more than tripled in size from 2012 to 2021, has long been the subject of contentious disagreements within Congress and among immigrant and farm worker groups. Discussions often centered on the need for an accessible form of legal immigration and the rampant labor abuses and human rights violations that have plagued the H-2A program throughout its 33-year history.
The structure of the H-2A program has been compared to indentured servitude because it gives employers a high degree of control over their workers. The visa is tied to a single employer, who provides housing, transportation, and livelihood. When H-2A workers are laid off, they don’t just lose their jobs. They lose the right to live and work in the US
Extending this model to a year-round workforce would effectively establish a new class of low-wage, permanent workers with few rights and no economic mobility.
“Bringing people in on temporary visas and making them ‘permanent temporary residents’ is a really scary idea and a bit dystopian,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.
