Florida congresswoman María Elvira Salazar breaks ranks with Miami’s Cuban-American Republicans and Trump

Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar has broken ranks with Cuban-American Republican lawmakers in Miami, calling the Trump administration’s decision to pause all immigration processes for citizens of 19 countries, including Cubans, Venezuelans and Haitians, “unfair” and “un-American.” The U.S. president announced the measure after two National Guard members were shot by an Afghan migrant in Washington D.C. before Thanksgiving.

“The United States doesn’t believe in collective punishment. We don’t punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. Freezing asylum, green card, and citizenship processes is not the answer. It punishes hardworking, law-abiding immigrants who followed every step of the legal process. That is unfair, un-American, and it goes against everything this country stands for,” Salazar said in a statement sent to EL PAÍS.

“Background checks already exist to stop terrorists, and they should. In South Florida, thousands fleeing socialist tyrannies did it the right way: applied legally, passed background checks, waited their turn. Many of them ready to vote for democracy and freedom!” the congresswoman added.

Her statements contrast with those made by her fellow Cuban-American Republican congressmembers from Miami, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart, who held a separate press conference last Wednesday and said that the measure announced by the Trump administration was a consequence of the “reckless abandonment of border security” by the administration of former Democratic president Joe Biden.

For years, the three Cuban-American lawmakers have presented themselves as a cohesive political bloc, demanding a hard line against totalitarian regimes, applauding sanctions, and defending controversial measures in the public eye. In recent months, they have displayed almost monolithic unity in support of Trump and his agenda, to the point of being dubbed “the three crazy Cubans” by the president’s allies.

Their nickname encapsulates their position as an inflexible and strident trio, whose collaboration illustrates the president’s influence on South Florida politics. Last year, they joined forces to lobby the administration over an agreement that would have allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela, a license that was subsequently not renewed. They have also publicly endorsed the president’s immigration policy, blaming the Biden administration for the migration crisis and portraying Trump’s measures as necessary for security, in line with the national Republican narrative.

A strategic shift

Salazar’s change of heart comes amid growing unrest in South Florida over the president’s immigration offensive, which has hit communities that supported him and helped turn Miami-Dade County — a Democratic stronghold for decades — Republican in the last presidential election.

The Trump administration has canceled humanitarian programs that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, many of them residents of Miami-Dade, to live and work legally in the country. It has also intensified operations to arrest migrants at workplaces, on highways, and in immigration courts, separating thousands of families and creating a climate of fear in these communities.

This climate has been politically exploited. The three legislators have been criticized by Democrats in advertising campaigns with billboards that have appeared on major Miami freeways, calling them “traitors” for their support of Trump’s immigration policies.

According to analysts, Salazar is adjusting her political strategy ahead of next year’s elections, aware that her district — Miami-Dade’s 27th, with 70% Hispanic voters and 20% immigrants — is particularly volatile and sensitive to the effects of Trump’s immigration policies. Experts believe this shift could strategically position her as a voice of reason within an increasingly polarized party, while also sending a clear message that immigration is a deeply personal reality in South Florida.

“Salazar is very vulnerable in her district, which is neither homogeneous nor historically Republican, but rather has a very particular and diverse demographic, with African-Americans, Haitians and Hispanics. Even a small shift among Hispanics could cause her to lose that district,” notes Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of Political Science at Florida International University (FIU). The congresswoman “is seeing in the polls that there is a negative reaction among Hispanics,” he adds.

Gamarra led a study in May on the sentiment among Venezuelans after the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the humanitarian parole program, where 43% of those surveyed said that Miami-Dade’s representatives in Congress — Díaz-Balart, Salazar and Giménez — had not adequately defended the Venezuelan diaspora on immigration matters.

“She won’t be able to win reelection with Trump and the Republicans’ policies, especially with this new hardening that has basically frozen all applications, from marriages to naturalization ceremonies. She has to move away from that hardline position,” Gamarra says. “She knows, given the demographics of her district, that she has to react, because otherwise they’re going to elect a Democrat.”

Dr. Andrew Seele, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said that “the more indiscriminate the policies are on immigration enforcement, the more likely they are to touch on people who are American voters.”

According to Guillermo Grenier, a sociology professor at FIU, Salazar’s decision is more personal. “Salazar has been uncomfortable with the immigration situation for some time, and this time she said, ‘Enough is enough.’ She’s reading the same polls as everyone else, which indicate that Trump is overstepping his bounds, and on a personal level, she saw that her position had to change,” he says.

Salazar “has nothing to lose because in her district she has no one against her,” even if Trump reacts and decides to push a Republican opposition candidate. “Her position in the party as one of the three ‘Crazy Cubans’ — now the least ‘crazy’ of the three — is firmly established, and she’s saying something that most people — Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, whoever — are thinking: that Trump has been overstepping his bounds legally, that is, he’s gone beyond what the law allows. What she’s said is, in fact, what the polls show and what people are talking about: that what’s happening is dangerous,” he adds.

Grenier believes the congresswoman has made “a very politically sensible decision, because she is distancing herself from Trump’s arguments that have a negative impact on Miami-Dade,” without directly pointing the finger at anyone.

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