Florida GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar breaks with Trump over immigration crackdown in campaign ad

Florida Republican Representative María Elvira Salazar has broken with President Donald Trump over his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement. In a campaign advertisement released on September 17, 2026, Salazar warned Trump that his policies have "gone too far" and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 "feel betrayed today." Salazar, who represents a heavily Hispanic Miami-area district, highlighted that half of the 50,000 people detained by ICE in July had no criminal record, underscoring growing Republican anxieties over losing Latino support ahead of the midterm elections.

Salazar campaign ad criticizes Trump

• ▪Representative María Elvira Salazar's 30-second campaign advertisement, recorded in front of the White House in English and Spanish, will run on television and online in South Florida.
• ▪Florida Republican Representative María Elvira Salazar released a campaign advertisement on September 17, 2026, criticizing President Donald Trump's mass deportation and immigration enforcement efforts as having "gone too far."

Hispanic voter betrayal concerns

• ▪A September 2026 Reuters and Ipsos poll found that 39 percent of Americans approved of President Donald Trump's handling of immigration, down from 50 percent in January 2025.
• ▪Representative María Elvira Salazar warned President Donald Trump in her September 17, 2026, campaign advertisement that Hispanic voters who helped elect him in 2024 "feel betrayed today" by his immigration policies.

ICE detention non-criminal immigrants

• ▪A New York Times analysis of July arrest data revealed that only 4 percent of individuals arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement had a previous violent criminal conviction.
• ▪Representative María Elvira Salazar stated in her campaign advertisement that 50 percent of the roughly 50,000 people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July had no criminal record.

Florida 27th district demographics

• ▪Florida's 27th Congressional District, represented by María Elvira Salazar, is more than 70 percent Hispanic and has one of the highest foreign-born populations of any U.S. House district.
• ▪Representative María Elvira Salazar represents Florida's 27th Congressional District, a South Florida seat that President Donald Trump won with 57 percent of the vote in 2024.

Republican immigration policy divisions

• ▪Representative María Elvira Salazar introduced the Dignity Act, a bipartisan bill allowing undocumented immigrants with no criminal record to secure legal status and work permits without a path to citizenship.
• ▪Far-right members of the House Republican conference have opposed Representative María Elvira Salazar's Dignity Act, characterizing the proposed legislation as an "amnesty" bill.

Debatable claims

• ▪Congress should pass the Dignity Act
• ▪President Trump's mass deportation campaign has gone too far