Florida Republican María Elvira Salazar has launched a television advert criticising Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, warning that Hispanic voters who helped return him to the White House in 2024 now feel betrayed.
Addressing the president directly, Ms Salazar says in the 30-second advert: “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.” She adds: “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
The intervention is an unusually public break with Mr Trump from a three-term congresswoman who serves as an assistant whip in House Republican leadership. She won re-election in 2024 by 20 percentage points, while Mr Trump took 57 per cent of the vote in her Florida 27th Congressional District.
Ms Salazar’s advert, which is also running in Spanish, reflects growing concern among Republicans that the administration’s immigration policies could damage the party among Hispanic voters before the November midterm elections.
Backlash over immigration enforcement
Her Democratic challenger, Eliott Rodríguez, is also a Cuban American former broadcast journalist. Fernand R Amandi, Mr Rodríguez’s campaign strategist, accused Ms Salazar of “lying” in the advert and said she was attempting to distance herself from policies she had supported.
“She owns all of these deportations, ICE harassment and racial profiling,” Mr Amandi said in a statement. “She voted for all this. She gave Trump the billions in ICE funding and the tools to do this.”
He also referred to the Florida detention centre known as Alligator Alcatraz, saying: “Don’t let her phony, eleventh-hour, ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ tears fool you because her boss’s immigration policy is now political poison in her re-election campaign.”
Mr Trump endorsed Ms Salazar earlier this year, writing on Truth Social: “SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.” Her campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms Salazar has for months urged House Republicans to support bipartisan legislation offering some immigrants with no criminal record a route to legal status and work permits, but not citizenship. More than a dozen Republicans back the bill, many representing battleground districts where the immigration crackdown has been unpopular.
The proposal has put her at odds with immigration hard-liners aligned with the party’s MAGA wing, who have described it as mass amnesty. The dispute became public during a congressional recess when Texas Representative Brandon Gill criticised the bill on social media, prompting a series of exchanges involving other conservative Republicans.
South Florida has been affected by federal and state enforcement operations, including the creation of the state-run detention facility in the Everglades. The centre closed this summer after being described as costly and ineffective, while a report released this week by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found it had failed to meet several federal detention standards, including by placing migrants in “small metal enclosures”.
The end of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from countries including Haiti and Venezuela has also left thousands detained or too frightened to work or attend school. Some Republican officials in South Florida, including elected officials in Doral and Republican sheriffs, have voiced opposition to harsh enforcement and deportations involving immigrants who have not committed crimes.
