It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 22nd.

They say to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Maybe to Donald Trump, every problem looks like a reason to reduce

immigration. Last night, he announced a 60-day moratorium on new green cards or permanent residency

status for people. His official reason is the coronavirus economic shutdown.

I want people that are in this country.

I want our citizens to get jobs.

I don't want them to have competition.

We have a very unusual situation.

And it is an unusual situation.

But we also know that the Trump agenda has always been to reduce legal as well as illegal immigration.

So is COVID unemployment an excuse that he's hitchhiking a campaign item onto or legitimate

because we do have this unemployment spike? Not barred, by the way, are any guest workers

who the country is allowing in to help with the food supply,

reportedly farmers and agriculture business organizations exploded in anger.

That's the way the Times put it, exploded in anger at the prospect that guest workers would also be banned.

In fact, the New York Times headline on this today is Trump backs

away from a broadband on immigration, but many will still feel the effect of restrictions. And, you know,

this is just the latest coronavirus development to hit immigrants harder than many other people.

Notably, many immigrants who have been working here

and paying taxes here will not be eligible for some of the relief programs. Another development this

week that you may not have heard about is that the Supreme Court may take changing conditions

from the coronavirus into account in the so-called DACA case, it is now considering involving

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