Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is drawing attention with a new campaign ad in which she directly challenges President Donald Trump on immigration, an issue central to both her political career and the administration’s agenda.<\/p>\n
In the ad, the South Florida Republican argues some immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far, particularly when it comes to immigrants with no criminal record.<\/p>\n
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says in the ad.<\/p>\n
Salazar points to ICE detention figures and warns that some Hispanic voters who supported Trump in 2024 feel alienated by the president’s immigration policies.<\/p>\n
“Be careful about what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed,” Salazar says.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez: Ad comes too late<\/p>\n
Salazar’s Democratic challenger, Eliott Rodriguez, dismissed the ad, arguing the congresswoman shares responsibility for the immigration policies she is now criticizing.<\/p>\n
“She just found out about this? She voted for this. This is the result of what she’s done in Congress,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez also believes the ad signals growing concern among Republicans about Florida’s 27th Congressional District, which Democrats hope to make competitive in the upcoming election.<\/p>\n
“My district is definitely in play, and this is proof that she believes it,” Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Analyst: Immigration is a political vulnerability<\/p>\n
NBC6 political analyst Alex Penelas says immigration has become one of Salazar’s biggest political challenges, particularly among South Florida’s large Cuban, Venezuelan and immigrant communities.<\/p>\n
“The Congresswoman knows that this immigration issue really is her Achilles tendon with a district where there are many Venezuelans, Cubans and others who have been her loyal supporters but now feel betrayed by the president’s immigration policy,” Penelas said.<\/p>\n
However, Penelas notes Salazar’s criticism of Trump’s approach is not new.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Salazar introduced the bipartisan Dignity Act, a proposal that combines tougher border security measures with a pathway to legal status for some longtime undocumented immigrants without criminal records.<\/p>\n
Speaking on NBC’s\u00a0“Meet the Press,” Salazar defended the legislation.<\/p>\n
“It’s the only bill that covers immigration reform in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,” she said.<\/p>\n
What’s at stake<\/p>\n
Penelas argues the debate extends beyond immigration policy and speaks to the broader political importance of Florida’s 27th District.<\/p>\n
He believes Republicans view the seat as critical to maintaining their majority in the U.S. House, which may help explain why Trump has tolerated some of Salazar’s public criticism.<\/p>\n
“The president knows this. So I think that’s why he’s willing to allow her to perhaps criticize him in this fashion, because there’s a bigger picture here and the bigger picture is keeping control of the House,” Penelas said.<\/p>\n
NBC6 reached out to Salazar’s office for additional comment on the campaign ad but had not received a response at the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is drawing attention with a new campaign ad in which she directly challenges President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226,1841],"class_list":["post-402916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}