A new digital and cable TV ad campaign being unveiled this weekend bashes Miami Republican congressional members, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for supporting President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation policies.
The ad features images of an armed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent pounding the doors of Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Haitian and Cuban families with deportation orders from Trump and Rubio. It specifically targets U.S. Rep. Giménez, R-Miami, and U.S. Rep. Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, for taking no action to stop the administration’s actions.
“The sound of ICE knocking at the door is terrorizing every corner of our community, while Trump’s puppets Marco Rubio, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart sit silently doing nothing to defend our neighbors who are working hard to achieve the American Dream,” Chris Wills, a spokesman for Keep Them Honest, a nonprofit producing and funding the digital and cable TV ads.
“We will hold those Republicans accountable for each and every family that is ripped apart by Trump and Rubio’s cruel policies targeting immigrants,” said Wills in a statement.
Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WLRN.
READ MORE: Billboard ad campaign in Miami-Dade targets President Trump, calling him 'wannabe dictator'
Trump administration official with the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it has started notifying hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that their temporary permission to live and work in the United States has been revoked and that they should leave the country.
The termination notices are being sent by email to people who entered the country under the humanitarian parole CHNV program for the four countries, officials said.
Since October 2022, about 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were allowed to enter the U.S. under the program created by the former Biden administration. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S.
DHS said that the letters informed people that both their temporary legal status and their work permit was revoked “effective immediately." It encouraged any person living illegally in the U.S. to leave using a mobile application called CBP Home and said that individuals will receive travel assistance and $1,000 upon arrival at their home country.
The department did not provide details on how the U.S. government will find or contact the people once they leave or how they will receive the money.
Trump promised during his presidential campaign to end what he called the “broad abuse” of humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.
Trump promised to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, and as president he has been also ending legal pathways created for immigrants to come to the U.S. and to stay and work.
His decision to end the parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans was challenged at the courts, but the Supreme Court last month permitted the Trump administration to revoke those temporary legal protections.
Immigration advocates expressed concern over the Trump administration decision to send the notices to more than a half million individuals.
It “is a deeply destabilizing decision,” said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge, a nonprofit organization that supports refugees and migrants entering the U.S. “These are people that played by the rules... they passed security screenings, paid for their own travel, obtained work authorization, and began rebuilding their lives.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
