() President Donald Trump’s proposed temporary free pass for some migrant workers remains in the development phase but a lack of details designed to protect farming and the hospitality industries has some worried that working migrants will remain targets for arrests and deportation.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the administration is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Homeland Security to develop the temporary pass. But without providing specifics on an idea Trump floated in a weekend televised interview, she said the priority remains on removing public safety threats and deporting violent criminals.

However, in the latest shift in policy regarding workplace enforcement operations, Trump’s “temporary free pass” suggests protection for some migrants may be coming. But until the plan fully takes shape, many advocates fear the same workers the pass could cover will instead live in continued limbo.

“(Trump) putting things on social media and saying things in interviews doesn’t change anything,” United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero told . “We are guessing what (Trump) will do because there is no plan. It’s just him saying what he feels at that moment.”

What is President Trump proposing with a temporary free pass?

Trump told Fox News that the temporary pass is being worked on for people who pay taxes, giving farm owners more control to avoid ICE raids similar to those that took place at California farms last month.

Trump and DHS have bounced between pausing workplace raids and saying they will continue calling them a “cornerstone” of preserving public safety. White House Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters he would not “get ahead” of Trump on the temporary pass and declined to give more specifics despite being part of ongoing conversations.

Trump said he understands what taking migrants away from farms means for those running agricultural operations.

“You end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away,” Trump said. “It’s a problem.”

Spokespersons for DHS and the White House declined to give more specifics to on Monday, deferring to Trump and Leavitt’s comments.

But Romero said that, like Trump, farm owners understand the difficulty of empty jobs in the American farming industry. The Center for Migration Studies found 86% of workers are foreign-born, and 45% are in the U.S. illegally, often without documentation.

Despite Trump’s commitment to protect farming, Romero said high levels of fear and anxiety continue to keep some migrants from going to work, convinced ICE agents will turn up to take more migrants into federal custody.

“The workers say that the way (the administration) is treating them, they feel like they’re disposable,” Romero said.

Migrants seeking a permanent solution

United Farm Workers, the nation’s largest union representing farm workers, has backed the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act that is designed to reform the H-2A visa program. Without legislation in place, however, Romero said that the immigrant workers that the union represents remain fearful that they will be targeted by ICE because of their status as undocumented immigrants.

She said that while Trump deemed farm workers as “essential” during the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants don’t fall into that category today. Instead, she said they are part of a population that is targeted by an administration with set goals for both daily arrests and annual deportations.

Romero said her goal is that migrant farm workers are instead rewarded as loyal professionals who, in many cases, have worked in the farming industry for decades.  For now, the current climate surrounding immigration is changing the way they go about their lives, forcing them to miss work and miss their children’s school events, anxious about what could happen.

“Not only do they feel like they’re being used, but their families and children are being terrorized,” Romero said. “(ICE) doesn’t have a court order (during raids), they don’t have any documents signed by a judge, they are not covering their faces, they’re not wearing their uniform and they’re driving unmarked vehicles. To me, that’s kidnapping.”

Valerie Lacarte, a senior U.S. immigration policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said that the goals for arrests and deportation have made who is being taken into custody feel indiscriminate.

As of mid-June, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse showed that of the 56,397 in ICE custody, 28% have criminal convictions and 25% have pending criminal charges. Meanwhile, 46% have other immigration violations. Just more than 11% have been fast-tracked for deportation, data shows.

Lacarte said it also affects the U.S. economy. Farming, for instance, contributed about $223 million to the nation’s gross domestic product in 2023, while data shows that the hospitality industry contributed $1.7 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2024.

However, although Trump has acknowledged that he does not want to harm key industries, Lacarte said that if more of the president’s immigration policies were built on logic, the idea of a pathway for migrant workers would extend to other industries such as the health sector, childcare and other environments in which migrants are working.

Lacarte suggests that perhaps, Trump and his administration may be more aware and sensitive to some professions than others. However, she believes migrant workers remain vulnerable to being detained by ICE while they are trying to support themselves and their families.

“If (the administration) pursued the real costs of what the mass deportation plan is, (the free pass) would extend really to the whole economy,” Lacarte told , adding if arresting “the worst of the worst” remained Trump’s main priority, workplaces would likely go unaffected by ICE raids.

“It’s a mixed bag right nowm” Lacarte said. “And there’s definitely a lack of focus there.”