U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado’s 8th Congressional District and other Republican lawmakers have sent a letter to the Trump administration, expressing concern that federal agents are targeting farm and hotel industry workers with “clean records.”

On June 11, a group of Republican lawmakers, including Evans, sent a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expressing worries for immigrants who are working in the country illegally but without criminal records.

While the Republicans expressed support for Trump’s immigration policies, they questioned whether ICE is seeking people with “clean records,” which, they argued, could be diverting attention away from picking up immigrants with criminal backgrounds, as the administration stresses it wants to do.

Evans’ district includes Weld County, Colorado’s top agricultural-producing county, with 2.5 million acres devoted to agriculture. It’s the state’s leading producer of beef cattle, grain and sugar beets, and it is the state’s leading dairy producer.

An estimated 73% of farmworkers nationwide are immigrants, according to a 2022 report from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At least 40% are believed to be in the country illegally.

While ICE raids in Colorado have so far been limited to Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs, immigration raids on farmland in other states have gotten national attention.

In an op-ed published in the Colorado Sun last December, Evans, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, wrote: “For those who are contributing to our society, not causing problems, and want to join the American dream legally, I do not support immediate deportation or family separation. As the grandson of an immigrant from Chihuahua, I know that America must prioritize deporting gangsters, not grandmas.”

Immigration roundups of immigrant farmworkers and farmers who complain about having to plow under their crops in part because of a lack of workers have gotten the attention of the Trump administration.

In a Truth Social post Thursday, Trump said, “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.”