(AFP) – US lawmakers from both parties attacked President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive Thursday, with a member of his own party warning that Hispanic voters who helped return him to the White House now “feel betrayed.”
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Republican congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida said in a campaign video released weeks before November’s midterm elections. Salazar, whose Miami-area district is overwhelmingly Hispanic, stated that half of roughly 50,000 people detained in July had no criminal record, and she urged Trump to reconsider the advice he was receiving on immigration.
“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she said. “I’m not talking about giving them amnesty. I’m talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land.” The unusually direct rebuke from a Republican comes as the party controlling Congress and the White House faces growing concern that aggressive immigration enforcement could erode the gains the president made among Latino voters in 2024.
Trump endorsed Salazar earlier this year, although the American former television journalist, who has Cuban heritage, has long advocated for legal status for some undocumented immigrants. Her intervention came hours before Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus accused the administration of inflicting both a human and economic toll through mass deportations.
At a Capitol Hill news conference with the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, lawmakers blamed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for rising costs associated with labor shortages — assailing what they called the “ICE tax.” “ICE is an affordability issue. Everyone in this country is paying the ICE tax,” caucus chairman Adriano Espaillat said, arguing that removing workers was pushing up the costs of food, construction, and health care.
House Democrat Joaquin Castro of Texas said immigration raids were removing workers from industries including agriculture, construction, and restaurants. “ICE is killing the American economy,” Castro stated, pointing to businesses struggling to find workers and consumers paying higher prices. California Democrat Gil Cisneros added that labor shortages in his state had caused more than $3 billion in crop losses and driven produce prices higher.
Trump campaigned on carrying out the largest deportation operation in US history and has sharply expanded arrests since returning to office. However, Salazar’s warning highlighted the political tension for Republicans representing large Hispanic communities as enforcement moves beyond immigrants accused of serious crimes. “Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy,” she told Trump.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
© 2024 AFP
