Republican Salazar Openly Goes After Trump and Breaks With Him: “Hispanic Voters Feel Betrayed”

María Elvira Salazar is taking a direct stand against Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policy in a new TV ad. The Republican congresswoman from Miami looks straight into the camera and says: “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.” Then she gets even more direct. The same Hispanic voters who helped Trump get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. Salazar has served 3 terms in the House, is part of the Republican leadership as an assistant whip, and won re-election in 2024 by 20 percentage points. Trump carried her district with 57 percent of the vote. Earlier this year, he was still backing her re-election with the words: “SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.” Open criticism of Trump is rare among Republicans because many fear the anger of the president and his supporters. Salazar’s campaign did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.

Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida breaks with Trump on camera. “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. ... The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

Republicans in South Florida have been warning for months that Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost them votes in the midterms. Salazar is running against Democrat Eliott Rodríguez. Both are Cuban American former broadcast journalists. Rodríguez campaign strategist Fernand R. Amandi accuses Salazar of lying in her 30-second ad, which is also airing in Spanish. He said she voted for the billions that funded and equipped ICE and therefore bears responsibility for deportations, ICE harassment and racial profiling. Her criticism now, he said, comes because Trump’s immigration policy is doing serious damage to her re-election campaign. Outside Florida, Democrats are also hoping to compete in 4 Texas districts with large Latino populations that Republicans previously redrew to make them more favorable to their own party.

Salazar, however, has been pushing her party toward a different course for months. Her bipartisan bill would give certain immigrants with no criminal record a path to legal status and work permits, but explicitly not citizenship. Trump-aligned Republicans call it mass amnesty. Texas Congressman Brandon Gill publicly went after Salazar during a congressional recess, and other far-right Republicans later joined in. More than 12 Republicans still support her bill, many of them from battleground districts where Trump’s immigration crackdown is unpopular.

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In South Florida, the consequences are already concrete. The state-run detention center in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” was shut down this summer after proving costly and ineffective. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found violations of numerous detention standards, including migrants being held in small metal enclosures. After Temporary Protected Status ended for people from Haiti and Venezuela, thousands were detained or withdrew from public life out of fear. Some stopped going to work or school. Even Republican local officials in Doral and Republican sheriffs in Florida have criticized Trump’s hard-line approach, especially the deportation of immigrants who have committed no crimes.