María Elvira Salazar and her broken promise to half a million Cubans: ‘She presented herself as our advocate, but she manipulated us’

María Elvira Salazar wore a dark blouse and a striking pearl necklace when she arrived at journalist Juan Manuel Cao’s studio in Miami. She took a seat, tucked her hair behind her ears, made sure she had good lighting and found the best camera angle. She’s well trained in the ways of television.

“So, how’s the campaign going?” Cao asked her in Spanish. Salazar said everything was going well, but that she would get the real answer during the midterm elections, on November 3. Then, she addressed the camera directly and spoke to the residents of Florida’s 27th Congressional District: “And, if you want to vote for me, fantastic. I’d like you to vote for me so I can return [to Congress] and finish the job.”

Days earlier, Salazar had released a video, filmed in Washington, D.C., addressed to President Donald Trump, in which she warned him that his immigration policies had gone “too far.” She added that the same Hispanics who helped him win the White House in 2024 now felt “betrayed.”

May Díaz was at work when the congresswoman’s video appeared on her phone screen. “María Elvira is grasping at straws,” she shrugs. “She knows that the way she’s neglected her own community will stare her in the face come November.”

At one point, Díaz, 36, believed that, if there was a solution for people like her, it might come with Salazar’s help. “Not because I thought a single congresswoman could solve the I-220A situation with a stroke of the pen, but because she campaigned fueling that hope,” she clarifies. “She presented herself as our advocate: she spoke about legalization, solutions and dignity. But María Elvira has manipulated us all; she’s taken advantage of the uncertainty and fear that we live with.”

Five years ago, after participating in the largest anti-establishment protests in Cuba in July of 2021, Díaz left the island for the United States. She crossed the border and, when agents released her, they gave her a document that almost became a death sentence: an Order of Release on Recognizance, or an I-220A. This allowed her to enter the country, but not to become a permanent resident (as several generations of Cubans have done for decades).

In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that the I-220A form doesn’t constitute a form of humanitarian parole. And, a year later, a federal court upheld that decision.

At the time, almost no Cuban really knew what it meant to have an I-220A. This category was established during the first Trump administration (2017-2021) and the document continued to be issued to thousands of people during the border crisis under Joe Biden’s presidency.

Whereas other groups of Cuban migrants had previously been dubbed Marielitos (referring to the exodus of 125,000 people from the port of Mariel in 1980) or “the rafters” (some 35,000 people who took to the sea in homemade rafts to cross the Florida Straits in the 1990s), the newest arrivals were called “the I-220As.” This group is part of the largest exodus since the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Nearly two million people have left Cuba over the past five years, fleeing the worst economic crisis of the Castro regime.

Neither lawyers nor immigration experts have an answer as to why some Cubans were granted this status and others were not (beyond pointing to the chaotic way in which the authorities were managing the border crossings). Congresswoman Salazar focused on these migrants and made them part of her rhetoric, in a state with more than 700,000 Cuban-American voters.

A Trump ally is born

After being defeated by Democratic Congresswoman Donna Shalala in 2018, Salazar decided to continue pursuing politics. And, during a rematch in 2020, she won the seat as the Republican candidate for Congress in Florida’s 27th District, promising to represent the diversity of a district that encompasses Latino neighborhoods like Little Havana, Pinecrest, and Kendall. “I have told my congressional leadership that it’s time for the Republican party to embrace the Hispanics back to the GOP. Some of the [immigration] enforcement that we have been creating in the last year (2020) is not the way,” she declared, when she won her primary.

Salazar was a fixture in Miami’s local media ecosystem for nearly three decades: a reporter for Channel 23 and Univision, a CNN correspondent, as well as an anchor for AméricaTeVé and MegaTV. She was a young, attractive face who made a name for herself on television with her coverage of the Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992), her interview with Fidel Castro in New York City — which she described as the “most difficult” conversation she ever conducted — and her interview with Augusto Pinochet, which was the last one he ever gave.

Those who know her say that, if anything has defined Salazar, it’s her work ethic. Her programs, such as María Elvira Confronta and María Elvira Live, turned her audience into her voters. “Among my voters are many of the people I served during my 35 years as a member of the Spanish-language press,” she once said.

“She was a very well-known figure here. She had a very balanced image; she could reach a broad audience,” says journalist Roberto Céspedes, who worked with Salazar for several years as executive producer of some of her programs. It was Céspedes, the story goes, who once told her, “I think that, if you run for office, you’ll win.”

One day, he realized that the journalist was using her TV program to lay the groundwork for a career in politics. Up until then, according to several people close to her, she was quite moderate, liberal… and even traveled to Cuba.

“But I saw that she was starting to veer dramatically to the right, in favor of Trump. She secretly started running [for office], cultivating a conservative image,” Céspedes recounts. Trump, in turn, with a message on X (then Twitter), put his hand on her shoulder. “María is badly needed in Washington,” he said. “Maria has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”

The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Salazar was born in Miami and grew up in Puerto Rico, speaking English with a strong accent. In recent years, she has spoken about the “evils” of socialism and has fervently criticized the Democratic Party’s policies. She has promised to fight to lower taxes and solve the housing crisis, while consolidating her position within the Cuban-American lobby in Washington.

“At the same time — being aware of the remarkable diversity of the electorate in the 27th District, which includes significant communities of Central and South American immigrants — she’s tried to position herself as an advocate for other Latin American groups, especially Venezuelans. This combination of loyalty to the Cuban exile community and attention to new waves of migration has decisively shaped her political profile in South Florida,” says Jorge Duany, former director of the Institute of Cuban Studies and professor emeritus at Florida International University.

On several occasions, Salazar has publicly pledged to help the nearly 500,000 Cuban migrants who have been issued Form I-220A. In fact, she heavily criticized the Biden administration over this issue.

“We’re talking about half a million people who have families who are voters,” Céspedes points out.

Salazar’s supporters agree that, throughout this time, among the three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress from Florida — along with Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos A. Giménez — she’s been the most supportive of migrants. Her detractors, however, maintain that her support for those issued Form I-220A was more of a campaign against Biden, rather than a campaign in favor of the thousands of people left in legal limbo.

Earlier this year, Salazar sent letters to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, explaining that it’s currently impossible for this group of migrants to benefit from the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans to become American residents and pursue citizenship.

Salazar has said that this “trash paper” — referring to Form I-220A — was given to Cubans by Biden; she called it “an empty promise” and asserted that Trump was “cleaning up Biden’s political mess.” She even said that she discussed the issue with former DHS secretary Kristi Noem, urging her to consider the I-220A document as proof of legal entry for Cubans.

Over her past six years in Washington, the congresswoman has asked Cubans who hold this document to trust her: “What I can say is that there’s hope.” And, last year, she again raised expectations with the new Trump administration: “We have four years to prove that Republicans can help [those who have been issued] Form I-220A.”

However, as time has passed, Cubans holding I-220As have begun to doubt the congresswoman’s claims. EL PAÍS contacted Salazar’s office about this, but her team responded that she was “not available at this time” for an interview.

“A political game”

“What María Elvira and the other congresspeople have done is nothing more than a political game to benefit themselves,” says José Gutiérrez, a 43-year-old Cuban who has been living in the United States since 2022. He holds an I-220A.

Gutiérrez, an Uber driver, has had to change his routine. He doesn’t dare go out in the mornings; he’s afraid of being the next Cuban to be apprehended by immigration agents in Florida, the state with the most arrests in 2025.

“I’m suffering from panic attacks and anxiety. I’m taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist,” he sighs. “I haven’t seen any pressure being put on politicians in Congress or on the president to find a real solution… not only for the I-220As, but for all the Cubans who are currently in legal limbo,” Gutiérrez laments.

However, Congresswoman Salazar asserts that, if anyone is doing anything for these migrants, it’s her.

During her recent appearance on journalist Juan Manuel Cao’s program, she recounted that, during a 10-minute phone call with Trump, she told him that she wasn’t attacking him with her recent statements. Rather, she was offering him advice. “It’s up to you,” Salazar claims that she told him. “I’ve done my part to explain what’s happening.”

Salazar’s words sparked a backlash that united various sectors of the MAGA community, some Washington politicians, the DHS (which affirmed that it will continue enforcing the law “whether Congresswoman Salazar likes it or not”)... and even migrants who feel like they’ve been political pawns in her campaign. This is especially true for those holding I-220As: they know that much time has passed without any change in their circumstances.

“I support Republican values. I’m a Christian, I’m a conservative… but seeing María Elvira Salazar express herself this way — when she’s practically lost the Hispanic vote, due to how she’s neglected them in recent years — raises a lot of red flags for me,” says 32-year-old Manuel Alberto Guerra, a doctor who arrived in the U.S. from Cuba back in 2022. While he was able to get his medical degree validated in Florida, the fact that he holds an I-220A has limited his job opportunities and his chances of earning better wages.

The polls being conducted ahead of the November midterm elections show Salazar in a tie with her Democratic opponent. And Esteban Rodríguez — a Cuban political activist who suffered repression on the island — has no doubt that the congresswoman is talking about people like him “because she needs the votes of the Cubans in her district.” Holding an I-220A, he remains in an irregular situation in Miami.

“But she had plenty of time to do a little more for the I-220As,” Rodríguez points out. “This is a maneuver; I don’t think she intends to help the I-220As or resolve the immigration status of all of us who are stuck in limbo.”

“She’s no friend of immigrants”

Activist Thomas Kennedy hasn’t forgotten the day that Salazar visited the notorious South Florida Detention Facility (nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”) last year, back when he was part of a campaign to close it.

“She inspected the site… and when she left, she defended it, saying it met the highest federal standards,” he recalls. “She’s not a trustworthy person,” he asserts. “She’s no friend of immigrants.”

Olga Soto’s partner — who suffers from diabetes — was imprisoned at the Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade Country. She remembers the countless emails that she sent to Salazar’s office seeking help. They never responded. “The lawyers said the only reason I could call my congresswoman was because his life was in danger,” she says. “She never even spoke to me.”

Some criticize Salazar, along with the two other Cuban-American congresspeople, for voting in favor of a $70 billion funding package for the DHS, effectively approving increased funding for Trump’s immigration enforcement.

The bill introduced by Salazar back in 2023 — the “Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act,” or the DIGNIDAD Act — has also been poorly received. In addition to a proposal to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, it includes provisions allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country in the last five years to obtain temporary legal status to work (provided that they pay the government $7,000 in “restitution”). However, this law wouldn’t grant them the possibility of obtaining either U.S. permanent residency or citizenship.

“There’s no path [offered by the bill] that truly leads to a dignified life,” says May Díaz. “What’s being offered is a conditional, expensive [immigration] status, [with people being] subjected to surveillance, without any guarantees of a permanent future [in the U.S]. It turns people into captive labor.”

But what most upsets some lawyers and analysts in South Florida is that, according to them, GOP Representatives Salazar, Diaz-Balart, and Giménez had ample opportunity to legalize immigrants who were issued Form I-220A… and they failed to do so.

Last year, when the House voted on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would define the administration’s budget, the three of them had the ability to exercise power with their votes. The legislation ultimately only passed by one vote (215-214).

“In the vote on the annual U.S. budget in the House of Representatives, those three votes together could have been [leveraged] to make a change regarding immigrants holding I-220A forms… but it didn’t happen,” Florida immigration lawyer Willy Allen laments. “María Elvira could have done more for them.”

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