Florida GOP Rep Up for Reelection Says Voters ‘Feel Betrayed’ By Trump’s Immigration Assault

A Republican member of Congress who is running for reelection in a Florida House district that is not considered to be competitive put out an ad on Thursday in which she breaks with President Trump’s at-times lethal immigration enforcement and mass deportation policies.

“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) said in the ad, first flagged by a New York Times reporter.

“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she continued later in the video.

Salazar is a member of Republican leadership — she serves as the assistant whip — and she represents Florida’s 27th Congressional District, a south Florida district that President Trump won with 57% of the vote in 2024. Trump endorsed her reelection campaign, and the congresswoman has been a staunch supporter of much of Trump’s second term agenda. “SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in February, endorsing Salazar. But she has recently become vocal about the administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants who don’t have a criminal record.

The contours of that crackdown are made clear by a recent New York Times analysis of arrest data from the month of July. It found that the majority of those arrested that month had not been charged with or convicted of a crime. Just 4 percent of those arrested in July had a previous violent criminal conviction. The Trump administration has been claiming since the beginning of his second term that the Department of Homeland Security would mostly be targeting violent criminals with its mass deportation operation. That promise has repeatedly been shown to be false. Per the Times:

A surge in immigration arrests this summer has swept up thousands of people who had not previously been the focus of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. They included people married to U.S. citizens, people who had entered legally and were pursuing an asylum claim, and others with a temporary legal status that the administration pushed to revoke.

The congresswoman has been clashing with members of the House Republican conference for months over Trump’s hardline immigration position. She introduced a bipartisan immigration bill in July — an updated version of the DIGNITY Act (H.R. 4393) — which would provide undocumented immigrants with no criminal record an avenue for securing a work permit and legal status, but not citizenship. Here’s how she described the legislation in a statement announcing its introduction:

The bill consists of five core principles: (1) ending illegal immigration once and for all; (2) fixing our outdated asylum system, (3) providing a dignified solution for undocumented immigrants living in America; (4) protects American workers and supports industries; and (5) ensuring the United States remain prosperous and competitive in the future.

The Dignity Act is based on the biblical principles of Dignity. It will restore law and order to our immigration system and support American workers. It was written in consultation with American businesses leaders, agriculture and farming industries, the faith-based community, immigration reform groups, and border security experts.

The bill has not gone anywhere in the House and she has been targeted by far-right members of the Republican caucus who describe the legislation as nothing more than an “amnesty” bill.

Salazar has been vocal about her frustration with Trump’s immigration crackdown in Florida in other ways as well. Earlier this week she called out the Trump administration over its arrest and detainment of a Florida journalist named Luis Galeano. She called on the administration to not deport him to Nicaragua because it would pose a serious threat to his safety after Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stripped Galeano of his citizenship due to his criticism of Ortega’s administration.

While Salazar’s district is not considered competitive, her latest vocal condemnation of the Trump administration’s inhumane mass deportation campaign is a sign that Republican candidates are wary of how they will fare in districts with heavy Latino populations, like south Florida and across Texas.