The Trump administration will not offer “amnesty” for farm laborers, according to President Donald Trump.

In a July 8 Cabinet meeting, Trump was asked to comment on remarks made earlier in the day by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. In a Tuesday morning press event, Rollins said that there will be “no amnesty” offered to illegal immigrants currently working on farms.

“There’s no amnesty,” Trump said in reply to a question about Rollins’s remarks. “What we’re doing is getting rid of criminals, but we are doing a work program.”

On Tuesday morning during a press event outside the Agriculture Department, Rollins was asked to follow up on recent statements made by Trump suggesting there would be an executive order, or some other kind of action, to address the issue of illegal immigrants working at farms and in the hospitality industry.

Rollins’s statement followed up on multiple instances of Trump’s saying on his Truth Social account or during public appearances that his administration might take a softer stance on illegal immigration in the agriculture and hospitality industries.

The domestic agriculture industry continues to rely heavily on illegal immigrant labor. In 2001, nearly 55 percent of hired crop farmworkers were “not legally authorized to work in the United States,” according to the Department of Agriculture—up from 14 percent in 1991. Since 2001, that percentage has dropped to around 40 percent, according to the report’s most recent update in January.

The secretary followed up by saying that she and Trump have spoken “once or twice” about mass deportations.

“He has always been of the mindset that at the end of the day, the promise to America to ensure that we have a 100 percent American workforce stands,” Rollins said. “But we must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportation so as not to compromise our food supply.”

Rollins said the long-term solution lies in a shift toward greater automation in agriculture, as well as workforce reform efforts that prioritize U.S. citizens.

Furthermore, she said the responsibility of “fixing the current immigration system” lies with Congress, not the executive branch.

In the Cabinet meeting, Trump asked Rollins to explain the “work program.” She echoed comments she made earlier in the day about mass deportation continuing “in a strategic way” to ensure “farmers have the labor that they need.” She pointed to the Department of Labor as being the branch that would oversee a potential worker program.

“We’re going to give the farmers the people they need, but we’re not talking amnesty,” Trump said in response to Rollins.

In a further follow-up, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the objective is not to “displace the American worker.” Right now, she said, the Department of Labor is focusing on what the law entails and working through the guest worker programs currently authorized under law.

“We have developed a new office to answer the need of our farmers, ranchers, and producers,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “That is not including an amnesty program at all.”

Trump’s statements on Tuesday backed up months of commentary about his preference for possible exceptions to his administration’s strict stance on deportation.

In April, at a Cabinet meeting, Trump told Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem that there should be a way for “certain people” who are strongly recommended by farmers to “stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a legal process.”

On June 12, Trump said on his Truth Social account that changes are coming to his administration’s stance toward deportations targeting workers in the hospitality and agriculture industries. Later that day, he said there needs to be a different policy for illegal immigrant workers who have proven their ability and loyalty to their employers while contributing to the American economy.

“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon,” Trump said. “I think we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure and hotels.”

In an interview with Fox News that aired on June 29, Trump again said there would be a “temporary pass” for certain workers.

“What we’re going to do is we’re going to do something for farmers, where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge,” Trump said. “We’re going to work it so that some kind of a temporary pass where people pay taxes, where the farmer can have a little control, as opposed to you walk in and take everybody away.”