A South Florida Republican U.S. House member battling for re-election is airing a campaign ad in which she declares that President Trump’s immigration efforts have gone “too far.”
Miami-Dade County Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar has represented Florida’s 27th Congressional District since 2020. She won re-election in November 2024 by 20 points, and the district on paper remains strongly Republican following passage of the congressional redistricting map earlier this year. It is 74% Hispanic, according to Census records.
She faces a serious challenge this November against Democrat Eliot Rodriguez, a former CBS Miami news anchor who emerged as winner of last’s month primary in the district.
Salazar is co-sponsor of a bipartisan immigration bill called “The Dignity Act,” which she has promoted as the “first serious bipartisan immigration solution proposed by Congress in decades.”
The bill aims to give undocumented immigrants in the country for more than five years the chance to work, pay restitution, and earn legal status. It would not allow access to federal means-tested benefits or entitlements. It would provide DACA recipients conditional permanent resident status for 10 years.
The bill is co-sponsored by Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar and has 40 original co-sponsors, 20 from each major party.
However, the legislation has been denounced by some conservatives as “amnesty.”
“In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record,” Salazar says in the ad.
“Be careful about what your advisers are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar says directly into the camera. “I’m not talking about giving them amnesty, I’m talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land, and only you can do that.”
Watch the ad below:
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
