Are MAGA Voters Opposed to Trump's Immigration Crackdown?

 

Representative Maria Elvira Salazar Sends a Message to Trump on His Immigration Crackdown

I have written a series of posts on Trump's unconstitutional crackdown on immigrants.  I have also argued for an open borders immigration policy as rooted in America's Lockean liberal tradition.  And I have suggested that Trump's brutal detention and deportation of immigrants would provoke a backlash even among his MAGA voters because most Americans realize that America's success depends on being open to immigrants.

We're now seeing clear evidence for this because Trump's Republican candidates are losing the support of their voters because they feel betrayed by Trump's immigration crackdown.  Today the most dramatic evidence is a political ad just released by Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, who is running for reelection as a Republican in Florida's 27th Congressional District, which is in South Florida in Miami-Dade County.  She won reelection in 2024 by 20 percentage points.  Trump carried her district two years ago with 57 percent of the vote.  And Trump has given her his endorsement.  So you might think she should be confident of reelection.  But actually polls suggest that she is in a neck-and-neck race with her opponent Democrat Eliott Rodriguez.

Apparently, she has decided that she has lost voter support because of Trump's unpopular immigration policies.  So in this new political ad, she sends a warning directly to Trump:

Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.  In July, 50 percent of the 50,000 people who were detained had no criminal record.  Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy.  The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.

This might provoke Trump into withdrawing his endorsement of her.  But that might be what she wants because in this election a Trump endorsement could become a curse.

In recent months, Salazar has proposed legislation in Congress that would give illegal immigrants with no criminal background a path to legal status and work permits.  More than a dozen Republican congressmen have supported her proposal.