The Mexican rapists pouring across our borders, it turns out, are good solid workers the American economy needs. Or, to put it differently, President Donald Trump changed his tune last week.

“Our great farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote on social media. “That is not good… Changes are coming!”

He meant it, at least then. A senior official at ICE in California sent a memo the next day to the enforcement units conducting the raids: Stay away from farms, it said. And come to think of it, stay away from the restaurants and hotels, too.

“Effective today, hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants, and operating hotels,” said the memo.

But, wait, aren’t these the same demons who crossed the border illegally? The rapists, criminals and drug dealers he said Mexico was sending us?

Well, said the waffler-in-chief when pressed, we have to be realistic.

“We can’t take farmers, take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe not,” Trump said.

AN OLYMPIAN FLIP-FLOP

In the pantheon of Trump’s head-spinning reversals, this one stands out. It was one thing when he reversed course on his tariffs, or his promise to protect Medicaid, or his threat to invade Greenland.

This one was of a different order. This is Trump’s core issue, and has been since he walked down the golden escalator a decade ago and began his assault on the dignity of immigrants. On Monday, after a revolt by his MAGA base, he reversed himself and said the workplace raids would resume, even on farms.

This Olympian flip-flop goes to the core problem Trump faces as he ramps up deportations. He knows he struck political gold when he began trashing the undocumented as animals bent on committing crime and sponging off the welfare state — even eating cats and dogs! President Joe Biden’s malpractice at the border, along with the stagnant wages of working Americans, created fertile ground for that demagoguery.

But he also knows that we need them to pick the crops, wash the dishes, and hammer the nails. As panicked farmers told him after a series of raids on California farms, chasing the immigrants away could leave crops rotting in the field. They make up about half the paid workforce on American farms, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Finding American citizens to do this backbreaking work might be impossible, farmers warn, and would certainly require much higher wages. About 90 percent of undocumented workers are from Mexico, most of them lack even a high school degree, and their median annual salary is estimated to be as low as $13,000.

CONSEQUENCES BECOME REAL

After Trump flipped, and promised to resume the raids on farms, The American Farm Bureau warned of dark consequences. “The end result is a reduced food supply and higher grocery prices for all American families,” it said.

You begin to wonder: Is this issue really going to work for Trump? It’s one thing to rant on the campaign trail, to spread lies about undocumented immigrants as criminals (they are less likely to commit crimes than citizens), and welfare loafs (they are ineligible for Medicaid, food stamps, and other benefits).

But governing is harder. And the risk of driving up prices is only part of it. Polls show that most Americans want criminals deported, were furious about the chaos at the border, and support mass deportation in the abstract.

But drill down and a different picture emerges. A Pew poll found that 64 percent want to let them stay under certain circumstances, like passing a security check, having a job, having a child born in the United States, or arriving here as a child.

In other words, there is a healthy amount of compassion for the typical undocumented in this immigrant nation. So, when we see pictures of masked ICE agents hauling away undocumented men in handcuffs while their children cry, it doesn’t play well for Trump. Rising prices at grocery stores, restaurants, and construction sites won’t play well either.

But that’s where we’re headed. And already, 49 percent of Americans oppose Trump on immigration overall, while 44 percent approve, according to a recent Reuters poll.

WILL IT HATCH?

One thing seems certain. Trump has pushed his poker chips into the pot on immigration, and he can’t pull them back without splitting his base in two.

So don’t take the temporary pause on farm enforcement seriously, says Alex Nowrasteh, a vice-president at the conservative CATO Institute. Trump made similar noises about granting legal status to high-skilled workers and to Dreamers, those who arrived as children. But in both cases, he snapped back after MAGA hard-liners pressed him.

“His most consistent policy position is immigration enforcement,” Nowrasteh told me. “You can be confident he won’t suddenly become pro-immigrant or reduce enforcement.”

But will this goose continue to lay golden eggs for Trump? That’s starting to look much less likely.

Moran is a national political columnist for Advance Local and the former editorial page editor/columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be emailed at [email protected].