A Republican congresswoman locked in a tight re-election fight is now openly rebuking President Trump over his signature immigration crackdown, arguing in a new campaign ad that the administration has swept up too many people without criminal records and alienated the very voters who helped put him in office.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., who represents a heavily Hispanic Miami-area district, looks directly into the camera in the ad and says, “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.” The ad notes that in July, 50 percent of the 50,000 people detained had no criminal record.
An onscreen graphic in the spot underscores that half of ICE’s detainees that month had no criminal convictions or pending charges. Salazar, however, stopped short of blaming Trump personally, instead pointing a finger at those around him. “Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy,” she says in the ad.
The congresswoman went on to invoke the coalition that helped deliver Trump the White House. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar says.
Salazar, first elected to Congress in 2021, has staked out a middle-ground position on immigration for years. Back in December 2022, she released a discussion draft aimed at overhauling the legal immigration system, arguing that a dysfunctional process was itself fueling illegal crossings. That effort evolved into the Dignity Act, legislation that would offer a path to legal status for certain immigrants already in the country illegally, without granting blanket amnesty. In the new ad, she frames that approach in historic terms. “You can be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery or what Reagan was for communism,” Salazar says. “I’m not talking about giving them amnesty. I’m talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land.”
The ad drops as Salazar faces a competitive race for a seat that has trended less reliably Republican in recent cycles. Her district is roughly 74 percent Hispanic and backed Trump by 15 points in 2024 after having gone for Joe Biden in 2020, and she is being challenged by a Democrat who, like Salazar, is a former television broadcaster.
With just over six weeks remaining until Election Day, Salazar is far from alone: several Republicans in competitive districts have begun tweaking their campaign messaging to distance themselves from the president as they fight to hold their seats. Some GOP candidates, even those with strong ties to the MAGA base, have gone as far as stripping Trump’s name from their campaign materials entirely.
This is not Salazar’s first break with the administration on immigration. Earlier this year, she drew backlash from some Trump supporters after criticizing arrests and deportations of immigrants going through the legal court process, saying anyone with a pending asylum case or status-adjustment petition deserves to go through the legal process.
Salazar’s office has not released further details on where or how extensively the new ad will air. Fox News has reached out to her campaign and to the White House for comment.
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