Several high-profile Hispanic and Latino Republican elected officials have expressed concerns over the Trump administration’s handling of immigration — a recent signal of what some see as an erosion of the political gains that President Donald Trump made with Latinos in 2024.
Amid those concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has paused most raids on farms, restaurants and hotels as Trump says he’ll expand enforcement efforts in larger cities.
Other Republicans say that Hispanic and Latino support for the president remains strong and blame the previous administration for recent immigration problems.
According to exit polls, 46% of Hispanic and Latino voters voted for Trump in 2024 — an improvement compared to his 2020 run, when he got 32% of Hispanic and Latino votes.
Matt Barreto, a political scientist at the University of California Los Angeles and a founder of BSP Research, a Democratic-aligned polling firm, told ABC News that this was largely due to economic concerns: “Voters just felt that Trump might provide better economic opportunities.” (Barreto conducted polling for the Harris-Walz campaign.)
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But as Trump’s mass deportation roundups spread beyond those with criminal records to day laborers and factory workers, several Hispanic and Latino members of Congress who supported Trump have pushed back on aspects of the administration’s tactics.
Some Latino officials say to focus on immediate threats
Six out of 11 members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, a Republican-sponsored caucus, sent a letter Wednesday urging the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus enforcement on immigrants who pose “an immediate threat to public safety.”
“We need to give absolute priority to every violent offender and convicted criminal illegal alien present in our nation. Diverting limited resources to other objectives puts our national security at risk,” the members wrote.
The letter echoed concerns raised by several Latino leaders that the administration’s immigration crackdown should be focused on those with criminal records, rather than long-time undocumented residents.
While Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., a Cuban-born member of the conference, did not sign on to the statement, he told ABC News on Thursday that he was concerned that his Cuban, Venezuelan and Haitian constituents might lose Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian parole program that the Trump administration has sought to revoke for many immigrants.
“I’ve always felt that we should do something a little bit nuanced. The immigrants we have in Miami-Dade are a little bit different, and they’ve been assimilated pretty well and are also part of the economy. So I’ve communicated that to the administration,” he said.
“TPS has allowed a significant population of inadmissible or illegal aliens without a path to lawful immigration status to settle in the interior of the United States, and the sheer numbers have resulted in associated difficulties in local communities where local resources have been inadequate to meet the demands caused by increased numbers,” the Department of Homeland Security said in February. Undocumented individuals are still able to apply for asylum as well.
In a statement posted to X on June 6, Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., a co-signer of the letter, criticized arrests in immigration courts and the end of a temporary parole program, writing these tactics “jeopardize our duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee.”
Immigration attorneys have told ABC News that federal agents have been making arrests at immigration courts — in some cases after their deportation cases have been dismissed. The attorneys said that immigration enforcement officers have been waiting in immigration court buildings and arresting people who have had their cases dismissed, after which they’re placed into expedited removal proceedings by the Department of Homeland Security.
Salazar did note, though, that “I wholeheartedly agree that the administration must kick out every criminal here illegally, just as President Trump promised.”
Some feel ‘betrayed by these actions’
Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the nonpartisan advocacy organization UnidosUS, told ABC News on a press call on Wednesday that Latinos who voted for Trump but then dealt with family members losing TPS are likely feeling “betrayed by these actions… This is looking like the countries where they came from, when they fled dictators and fascist regimes, and so I think they’re starting to see signs here that this is not what they bought into.”
Barreto similarly said that he thought immigration actions are impacting Trump’s standing among Latino voters who voted for him, adding that those voters have also for a long time differentiated between border security and immigration policies.
Even at the 100-days mark of Trump’s second administration, he said, which was April 30, “people were still talking about border security as a totally separate issue from these others … there was a clear delineation to Latino voters that long-term immigrants already here, working in the United States, are part of the fabric of our country and should not be targeted.”
Some recent polls, including a Washington Post/George Mason University Schar School poll published Thursday, have shown declining approval more generally about Trump’s handling of immigration, although those polls were looking at U.S. adults more broadly.
The White House and others have pushed back, however, on claims that Trump is losing support among some Hispanic and Latino voters.
“President Trump campaigned on enforcing federal immigration law and he received a sweeping mandate from the American people to carry out that agenda. The President’s winning coalition included historic support from Hispanic voters with widespread backing among these voters for deportations,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment.
Distinctions between long-timers and newcomers
David Hernandez, the chairman of the Los Angeles Hispanic Republican Club, said that immigration enforcement actions have not changed how members of his group feel about Trump.
However, he pointed to some nuances in how groups within the Latino community think about immigration enforcement, framing it as a split between undocumented individuals who have been in the country for a long time and those who have arrived more recently.
According to Hernandez, those who have been in the U.S. for decades are “struggling, and yet they see so many services being distributed to individuals who have just arrived.” Hernandez highlighted, in particular, the influx of foreign nationals during the final two years of the Biden administration as causing resentment.
Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, similarly argued that the previous administration’s immigration policy as well as local Democratic sanctuary policies have forced ICE to cast a wider net.
“That’s why I wish that [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom and [Los Angeles] Mayor [Karen] Bass would just cooperate with the federal government so these raids could stop, so the federal government could have direct access to the jails and prisons,” Rodriguez said.
“So the people that have been here for 20, 25, 30 years, whose kids were raised here, who are God-fearing, hard working individuals — some of the hardest-working individuals on the planet — so they don’t have to live with anxiety and fear,” he added.
Sounding a different tone
The California state prison system says it does work with ICE regarding individuals “who may be subject to deportation within 90 days of intake into the prison system.”
Trump himself has begun to sound a different tone on some long-time undocumented immigrants. He told reporters on Thursday “Our farmers are being hurt badly, they have very good workers that have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. We will do something about that.”
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Saturday new guidance to pause most raids on farms, restaurants, and hotels had been issued. Still, Trump reinforced his commitment to mass deportations on social media on Sunday, writing that the administration will expand enforcement efforts in America’s largest cities.
Some Latino Republicans struggling with Trump’s mass deportation policies originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
