Rep. Maria Salazar, who represents Florida’s 27th District, is turning heads with a campaign ad that is directed at President Trump and his fulfilled campaign promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
“Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies,” Salazar states in the campaign ad.
“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024,” she states, “feel betrayed today.”
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, is familiar with the unusual campaign ad and its criticism of Trump. What stood out to him was Rep. Salazar’s claim that only half the illegal immigrants detained in July have a criminal record.
That statement implies the other half, illegal aliens without a criminal record, should be left alone.
"She seems to think that just coming into the country illegally, as long as you don't commit any subsequent crimes, you're okay,” he said. “That's simply not true, and it's not the way the justice system works anywhere else.”
The number of illegal immigrants currently living in the United States is impossible to know. Pew Research estimates that number is 14 million. That number tracks closely with 13.5 million estimated by the Center for Immigration Studies.
FAIR estimates that number is 18.6 million, citing a surge of 4 million who were welcomed and allowed to remain during the Biden administration.
Salazar's district includes Cuba Americans
Salazar’s direct criticism of President Trump comes during a tight re-election race. The congresswoman’s Democrat challenger is Elliot Rodriguez, a well-known TV news anchor
Salazar’s congressional district includes a large constituency of Cuban Americans living in Miami and Miami-Dade County.
Salazar, who is 64, is the daughter of parents who fled Cuba, in 1959, when Castro came to power.
Beyond feeling sympathy for immigrant families, Rep. Salazar has likely heard complaints from Florida’s hospitality industry, and from South Florida homebuilders, after ICE agents rounded up their framers, painters, and roofers with massive raids.
Farther down in the campaign ad, Salazar also states she is not asking for President Trump to grant amnesty.
“I'm not talking about giving them amnesty,” she insists. “I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land, and only you can do that."
That claim is quite a claim to make, however, since Rep. Salazar has been pushing an amnesty bill on Capitol Hill ever since she won her first election in 2020. She most recently re-introduced her bill, the Dignity Act, during the 2025 congressional term.
A FAIR article from 2021, when Salazar was a freshman congresswoman, criticizes her for demanding Republicans grant amnesty for illegal aliens who have lived in the U.S. for several years with no criminal record.
