FROM THE OUTSIDE | The immigration drama of Republican Latinos

Por

José Carreño Figueras

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Publicado: 23/6/2025 · 1:06 p.m. MX | Actualizado: 23/6/2025 · 1:06 p.m. MX

While the focus remains on the raids and arrests targeting undocumented immigrants in Democrat-led cities and states, another equally significant development is happening in Florida. The decision to deport Cubans and Venezuelans has upset even some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters.

Leaders from these communities have accused the administration—and several Cuban American lawmakers—of betraying groups that openly supported them during the 2024 election and contributed to the nearly 40 percent of Latinos who voted for the current president.

The Trump administration’s immigration policies include a travel ban on nearly 30 countries, most of which are Muslim-majority nations. However, the list also includes Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela—countries ruled by self-proclaimed socialist regimes and the origin of tens of thousands of refugees and political asylum seekers.

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According to The Miami Herald, the Trump administration has removed deportation protections and revoked work permits for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who had received Temporary Protected Status (TPS). It also ended extensions for Haitian asylum seekers. It stripped protections from over half a million Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Haitians who had entered under a humanitarian program implemented by the Joe Biden administration (2021–2024).

But Trump has called them gang members and described it as an “invasion” of undesirables.

Nowhere in the U.S. is this felt more strongly than in South Florida—a region shaped by Cuban immigration since the 1960s following the Cuban Revolution, and later by waves of Central and South Americans fleeing political violence and economic hardship in countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, and El Salvador.

Recently, that influx has grown, creating images of thousands waiting at the Mexican border to enter the U.S.—images that have fueled the anti-immigrant rhetoric of both Trump’s campaign and his current administration.

The apparent cost is the disillusionment of communities that once supported him. Although the next election is still some time away, Florida’s Latino lawmakers—particularly Cuban American representatives María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, and Mario Díaz-Balart—have expressed opposition to how the deportation and raid campaigns are being managed. Like Los Angeles, California, these include arrests within the very buildings where asylum seekers and applicants go to process their paperwork.

The potential effect of this backlash on the 2026 midterms worries Republicans, who have a slim six-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Much will depend on voter turnout among a group now feeling betrayed.

José Carreño Figueras