From dignity to a heavy hand: Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s shifting views on immigration

At the Republican convention in Milwaukee a few weeks ago, a verbal slip went unnoticed during a panel on the importance of the Latino vote in the United States with two House representatives, Monica de la Cruz, from Texas, and Maria Elvira Salazar, from Florida’s 27th district, south of Miami. It was a routine campaign chat. But in the middle of the nearly 40-minute conversation, when the topic of migration was being discussed, Salazar said forcefully: “Those who just came in and belong to El Tren de Aragua, we should kill them.” Then she caught herself and added: “We should pull them by the hair and kick them out.” The quick self-correction left the incident as little more than an anecdote, but those few seconds of the conversation reflect the constant changes in immigration rhetoric that the congresswoman must make in order, on the one hand, to be in line with the party’s most aggressive stance —directly and openly dictated by former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump— and, on the other, to demonstrate a little more moderation in appealing to her voters, who are mostly Latinos and migrants.

It’s not that there isn’t an appetite for a tough line among the country’s Latino voters, as there are quite a few who support Trump’s measures. And Salazar’s recurring appeal to import the methods used by Nayib Bukele to deal with organized crime seeks to capitalize on the popularity of the Salvadoran president’s authoritarian — and allegedly human rights-violating — strategies among the Latin American right. But it hasn’t always been that way. A little over a year ago, María Elvira Salazar was the main sponsor of a major bipartisan bill to reform the country’s immigration laws. The proposal would reinforce the border intensely, but also open the door to regularizing the 11 million undocumented migrants in the country. Right now the bill, known as the Dignity Act, is still in Congress.

The bill’s language is very different from that which dominates the Republican discourse around migration. The legal project speaks of compassion and dignity for migrants, not mass deportations or false accusations of alleged criminality. But it is also different in substance. The bill was drafted together with other Democratic congressmembers; it is a consensus proposal. In that sense it is similar to the legislation that was arduously negotiated in Congress by the two parties between last November and February, which combined aid to Ukraine and Israel with immigration reform, only to be rejected at the last moment by express order of Trump. Keeping the migration crisis alive is important for his election campaign; furthermore, in the midst of a historic and bloody presidential election like few others, there is no conversation or negotiation with the adversary. Now, the fact of being “bipartisan,” a label that was proudly launched when the Dignity Act was presented, is not mentioned with the same impetus, if it is mentioned at all.

The bill, which is unlikely to pass in the near future, is being marketed as a comprehensive and lasting solution to reform current immigration laws. It has four ambitious main focuses: ending illegal immigration “once and for all,” giving dignity to people “who live in the shadows,” protecting American workers, supporting domestic industry, and growing the economy.

The provisions include a budget of $25 billion to secure the border, the upgrade of technology and infrastructure and the reinforcement of border personnel. It also proposes a system to process asylum cases in 60 days in specialized centers located at ports of entry. And all this would be paid for, says the proposal, with the mechanisms included in the next segment of the law, which offers America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants the possibility of enrolling in a seven-year Dignity Program during which they would be able to legally work and pay taxes, but would also be obliged to pay an extraordinary “restitution” fee of $5,000. They would not be entitled to any federal aid program, but after seven years they could enter another additional five-year process called Redemption Program, after which they could become eligible for citizenship, after having learned English, national civics and having done community service or paid an additional $5,000 in restitution payments.

Despite offering “dignity,” it is not a generous proposal for immigrants, and some critics say that it asks too much of them. But it also does not follow Trump’s line, which advocates for “the largest deportation in history.” During the panel discussion at the party convention, Salazar sought, precisely, a middle ground when she spoke about the proposed law. The idea of granting “dignity” was still present, but the characterization of illegal immigrants was closer to the one that dominates Republican discourse today. She also said that the law did not give the possibility of citizenship, when that is not true: it does offer the possibility, although after a very long, arduous and expensive process.

Salazar also produced a moment of unmasked realpolitik when discussing Trump’s immigration policies: “Sometimes, that is rhetoric you say while you’re campaigning (and) that may not happen.” She then clearly stated the economic argument that these workers are needed to keep the economy afloat, going against the party line that claims that migrants “steal” jobs from Americans. This newspaper contacted Congresswoman Salazar’s office, but did not received a reply by the time this article was published.

Immigration policy is central to Trump’s campaign message, as it always has been; it forces his party to abandon consensus and defend extreme measures. These include some well-known ones, such as building a wall on the border, deporting millions of illegal immigrants, intensively pursuing criminals who smuggle people and ending birthright citizenship.

The latter is a particularly thorny issue for Salazar, a Florida-born daughter of Cubans, and many other Latino Republicans who have benefited from this right. She has never spoken out openly in favor of the proposal, but neither has she spoken out against it. For Latino Republicans fighting for congressional seats in majority-Latino districts this November, like Salazar, ambivalence is the strategy of the moment.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition