{"id":410098,"date":"2026-09-25T07:32:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T07:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/410098\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T07:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T07:32:23","slug":"can-breaking-with-her-party-on-immigration-help-a-latina-republican-get-reelected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/410098\/","title":{"rendered":"Can breaking with her party on immigration help a Latina Republican get reelected?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story<\/a> was originally reported by Mel Leonor Barclay of The 19th<\/a>. Meet Mel and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

KEY BISCAYNE, Florida \u2014 On the night of Florida\u2019s primaries, Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar started her victory speech with warnings about the \u201csocialist penetration of the Democratic Party\u201d but ended with an admonition directed at her own side.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the enforcement that we have seen this year is not the way \u2014 is not what we need to do with immigration,\u201d Salazar said, raising her voice above the fans blowing hot, humid air onto a small crowd of supporters and journalists gathered at an Argentinian restaurant in Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have departed from my party on this. And thank God for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a district that Trump won by 15 points, Salazar\u2019s resistance to the administration\u2019s immigration crackdown has for months signaled cracks in the coalition that helped Republicans take the White House and control of Congress in 2024, one that drew a striking number of Latinos to the GOP. Republicans will need those voters back to win here in Miami and in many other battlegrounds across the country this November.<\/p>\n

Trump and his fellow Republicans found success, in part, by talking about the \u201cchaos\u201d immigration had wrought on the country. Now, Salazar is vying for reelection by denouncing the chaos her own party\u2019s immigration agenda has brought to her community.<\/p>\n

This summer, Salazar traveled to Rome holding a copy of an immigration reform bill that she introduced with Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar and asked the pope to bless it. For months, she has been seen holding tearful news conferences outside the U.S. Capitol with families of people who have been detained, sending letters to federal agencies pushing back on expedited removals and case processing delays, and making calls privately to see what can be done about this or that case.<\/p>\n

Her criticism boiled over Thursday, when Salazar released her first TV ad of the general election, a striking 30-second spot in which she speaks directly to President Donald Trump: \u201cMr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ad was released in both English and Spanish. Trump, of course, doesn\u2019t speak Spanish, but millions of voters across Florida\u2019s 27th Congressional District do. Many have seen the impact of the administration\u2019s immigration crackdown in their own homes, in their own neighborhoods or in the headlines that flash across South Florida screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to reevaluate how things are being handled. There’s no need for cruelty,\u201d said Lourdes Pestano, 62, who has lived in Miami-Dade since she immigrated from Cuba at age 14. Pestano said she is planning to support Salazar, but was glad to see her speak on immigration at her primary victory party. The conversation around immigration is losing sight of \u201cpeople who have created a life here,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are people worth respecting and who should be treated with dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after Trump took office, Salazar started getting publicly involved in cases involving immigrants detained by ICE, including constituents and people held at Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious South Florida detention facility that was open from July 2025 until June of this year.<\/p>\n

One case involved Carlos Della Vale, a Pennsylvania resident who was held at Alligator Alcatraz for part of his nine-month detention. In an interview, his wife, Angela Della Valle, said she was not allowed to visit her husband at the facility, where he was living in extremely tight quarters and with inadequate access to clean water \u2014 conditions that were confirmed by a September report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security itself.<\/p>\n

Angela Della Valle appeared alongside Salazar and a bipartisan group of lawmakers during a news conference in Washington, D.C., in April to advocate for her husband\u2019s release and in support of immigration reform<\/a>. Carlos Della Valle has no criminal record but entered the United States without authorization twice, which closed off his path to permanent legal status. During the news conference, Salazar said that people like Carlos Della Valle shouldn\u2019t be targeted by ICE. Afterward, Salazar stayed in touch with the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said that she would reach out on our behalf. We don’t know exactly what she did, but I can tell you that when he was released, she was the first one to call,\u201d Angela Della Valle said. After Carlos\u2019 release, Salazar welcomed the pair back to the Capitol and shared about the reunion on social media<\/a>. \u201cReal people, real pain, real families that deserve so much better,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Maria Salazar breaks with Trump on immigration enforcement in campaign ad<\/a><\/p>\n

Salazar was also vocal in advocating for the release of nine Cuban women who were detained during routine supervision visits with ICE in March of last year \u2014 a story that attracted significant attention in an area with a large Cuban population. One of the women\u2019s husbands, Ernesto Puig, appeared on regional television within days of his wife\u2019s arrest<\/a>, describing how their toddler son, a U.S. citizen, would run to the door at any knock waiting to be reunited with his mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he got to daycare today, he grabbed a play phone that they have and said, \u2018Mama!\u2019… talking to himself,\u201d Puig said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTodas liberadas!\u201d \u2014 they\u2019ve all been freed \u2014 Salazar shared on X upon the women\u2019s release two months later<\/a>, adding that she had been in close contact with ICE since she found out about the cases.<\/p>\n

Scant polling in the race shows Salazar in a dead heat against Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, a former local TV anchor, two years after she was reelected by 20 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither party expected this race to be particularly competitive,\u201d said Erin Covey, a political analyst with the Cook Political Report. Salazar has lost much of her advantage, Covey said, to Trump\u2019s tanking popularity with Latino voters.<\/p>\n

A New York Times\/Siena poll from early September<\/a> found Trump\u2019s approval among Hispanic voters at 26 percent, compared with 38 percent approval among voters overall. When asked which party they trust to handle immigration and the cost of living, three-quarters of Hispanic voters said they would trust Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the board, Trump’s approval rating is in a tough place, which is why we’re seeing Congresswoman Salazar actively distance herself from the president in a way that really no other Republican incumbent has done this cycle at the House level,\u201d Covey added.<\/p>\n

In her latest ad, Salazar confronts Trump, telling him, \u201cThe same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.\u201d She also urged Trump to give immigrants not \u201camnesty,\u201d but a \u201cdignified life in this promised land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLagrimas de cocodrilo\u201d \u2014 crocodile tears \u2014 said Katharine Pichardo, the president and CEO of Latino Victory, a PAC-nonprofit pair that backs progressive Latino candidates, after watching Salazar\u2019s TV spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Maria Elvira Salazar to now come and denounce Trump, well, good for her. Politically I guess she feels it serves her well. But the reality is that the damage is done, and she needs to go,\u201d Pichardo said.<\/p>\n

In a Sunday interview on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d Salazar said that she spoke to Trump after her new ad aired and that he was receptive. During the call, Salazar said, she told Trump that GOP Latino support is a \u201cpot of gold\u201d that Trump brought to the GOP and that only he could preserve.<\/p>\n

Salazar is not the only Republican taking on the impact of Trump\u2019s immigration agenda. In Texas\u2019 15th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz aired an ad featuring a woman whose husband, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, was detained by ICE<\/a>. The ad suggests De La Cruz helped the couple with their immigration case and blames the nation\u2019s \u201cbroken\u201d immigration laws for the man\u2019s detention.<\/p>\n

De La Cruz represents a South Texas district that Trump carried by 18 points and that, like Salazar\u2019s, has become a battleground this cycle. De La Cruz is running against Bobby Pulido, a Tejano music star with a broad name recognition in the area.<\/p>\n

And in New York\u2019s 17th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Mike Lawler is defending his Hudson Valley seat with a TV\u00a0ad<\/a> in which he tells voters in Spanish that he\u2019s backing Salazar\u2019s immigration reform bill, the Dignity Act, to \u201cprotect families\u201d and so that \u201ceveryone can reach the American Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

That bill is key to Salazar\u2019s pitch to voters. She blames the current situation on the country\u2019s immigration laws, which haven\u2019t been reformed since the Reagan administration.<\/p>\n

The Dignity Act, crafted by Salazar and Escobar, would increase funding for border security, reform the asylum system to limit where and how people can petition for asylum, and increase criminal penalties related to illegal migration. It also would restrict immigration officers from carrying out enforcement in “sensitive locations\u201d like schools and churches.<\/p>\n

The bill creates a path to citizenship for childhood arrivals, but the most recent version of the proposal that was introduced in Congress did away with one of the hallmarks of the previous version, a path to citizenship for a broad swath of immigrants without permanent status. Instead, it would create a new long-term \u201cDignity Status.\u201d This would allow some undocumented immigrants who meet the requirements of the law to legally work and be shielded from detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can’t ever really become part of the United States,\u201d said Heidi Altman, the vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, which opposes the bill.<\/p>\n

Among its backers is American Families United, a group that represents mixed-status families. Ashley DeAzevedo, the group’s executive director, said the bill would offer much needed reprieve to families facing fear and uncertainty over deportation, and more than anything else, she believes Salazar can push forward a politically viable proposal on an issue that has long vexed Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you, I am not a Republican, but I am still aligned with her because I believe in her character,\u201d DeAzevedo said. \u201cShe genuinely cares and is authentic on the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Miami, Salazar told voters in Spanish that she would \u201cnot rest\u201d until immigration reform was enacted. \u201cIt\u2019s much later than what I would\u2019ve liked, but the president has two years left in office, and I\u2019m sure that on the issue of immigration, we\u2019re going to see something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor immigrants who have been here for years, who have no criminal record, they will have some dignity. That is my promise.\u201d<\/p>\n