Cubans in Florida waver on Trump and Republicans over immigration

Since the Trump administration launched its crackdown on undocumented immigrants two years ago, the waiting room of Cuban-born immigration lawyer, Ismael Labrador, in Miami is never empty. His appointment book is packed with relatives of detained immigrants trying to secure their release before they're deported back to their countries of origin.

Although business is booming, Labrador wishes it wasn't.

"We have relatives living in fear right now, we've had relatives who have been deported back to Cuba, unfortunately," he explains.

Cubans have traditionally enjoyed favoured immigration status in the United States under provisions enshrined in 1960s-era legislation called the Cuban Adjustment Act. But widespread arrests across Florida by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have left the Cuban American community more vulnerable in the US than they'd ever imagined, says Labrador.

"The way I put it is that if you don't have a Green Card in the United States, you may be a target."

Countless mobile phone videos have recorded such arrests in places previously considered off-limits: parents detained outside schoolyards, at bus stops, youth sporting events and even inside courthouses at pre-arranged immigration hearings.

Few have had the impact of the footage of 39-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant, Grace Calero, and her 19-year-old daughter, Giulianna Carriel, being arrested in a hospital ward.

Two months ago, the pair were driving to work in Kissimmee, central Florida when they were hit by another car and taken to hospital in an ambulance. While they were being treated for their injuries, ICE agents burst in and arrested them. They were deported back to Ecuador within days.

Labrador's cousin has also been caught up in the dragnet of ICE detentions. Despite his best efforts, the immigration lawyer was unable to prevent his own relative from being deported back to Cuba.

"It's hard when you're fighting against a lot of resources," he laments.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said the president was elected on a promise to deliver mass deportations and is delivering on that. "He stopped the invasion of our country and as a result of his policies more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the US," a White House spokeswoman told the BBC last week.

ICE, meanwhile, has said it is targeting anyone who has broken American immigration law and is in the country illegally.

Labrador was among the 68% of Cuban Americans in Florida who voted for Donald Trump two years ago, a decision he roundly regrets today.

Few could accuse Trump of hiding his plans on immigration. On the campaign trail in 2024, he touted his policy of mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

"On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation programme in American history", he said repeatedly at rallies, including in Florida.

Labrador – and many thousands of disillusioned Latino voters like him – thought the administration would only deport people with criminal records.

"I think we got blindsided by the administration," he argues.

"Personally, I voted for Trump because I wanted to get criminals out of the country," he says, alleging that "communists came in from Cuba under Biden."

"We wanted to have a safe America. We never thought that he was going to go after everybody."

"This isn't what I voted for," he insists.

Labrador is far from the only Cuban American in Florida to experience buyer's remorse over President Trump.

Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents Florida's 27th Congressional district, recently released a video filmed outside the White House in which she distanced herself from his deportation policy saying it had gone "too far".

"The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today," she said, addressing President Trump.

Salazar is locked in a tight race against another Cuban American, the Democratic Party's candidate, Eliott Rodríguez. Her close association with Trump on immigration could potentially cost Salazar her congressional seat.

Florida remains a Trump stronghold. At a recent gathering of Cuban American entrepreneurs in Miami, the atmosphere remained staunchly pro-Trump. "Miami loves Trump, Cuban Americans love Trump," says real estate businessman, Juan Omar Sixto, motioning at the other guests behind him.

"They agree with Trump that anyone who crossed the border illegally should be out," he says, despite acknowledging he illegally entered the US himself six decades earlier.

A poll released on Thursday by Florida International University found that not all South Florida Cubans agree - 76% said they disapprove of the Trump administration's deportations of Cubans with no criminal record. But their support for the Republican Party remains steadfast, with 68% saying they plan to vote Republican in November.

In other parts of the country, support amongst Latinos is declining.

In the last election, Trump beat Kamala Harris by 56.1% to 43% - the biggest margin of victory for a candidate in the state since 1988 - in part because of the support of Latino communities. But a recent NBC News/Telemundo poll of 8,000 registered Latino voters showed nearly 60% favour seeing Congress come under Democratic Party control to just 35% wanting a Republican victory.

The high cost of living is a big factor for people's discontent, as residents feel supermarket and petrol prices are impossibly high for working families.

But for many Hispanics, it's also partly because of stories like Heydi Sanchez's.

Sanchez left Cuba in 2019 as the island spiralled into economic collapse and illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the US. After nine months in a detention centre, she was released under an i-220B Order of Supervision which grants the right to remain in the US but carries the constant threat of deportation.

Sanchez settled in Tampa where she worked with autistic children and the elderly. After a complex and expensive fertility struggle, she and her husband had a baby girl called Kailyn.

Most i-220B holders try to normalise their immigration status via 'humanitarian parole' and must check in with ICE agents at regular scheduled appointments. Last year, President Trump revoked temporary humanitarian parole to about 300,000 Cubans. Sanchez knew something was wrong in her case when her regular ICE meeting was brought forward without warning.

At the appointment, she was detained. Kailyn was taken from her arms and passed to her father, a US citizen. Within a day, Sanchez was on a deportation flight back to Havana in shackles with no recourse to appeal.

I met her in Cuba where she now lives in a one-bed apartment in Mayabeque, a rural province outside Havana.

"It's like the sky fell in and crushed me", she says of being separated from her daughter.

"When we have video calls, she says: 'Mummy, come home.' And I say: 'darling, Mummy is away working.' What else can I tell her? How can I explain it?'", Sanchez asks, unable to hold back the tears.

Despite expressions of support from several US politicians, including Maria Elvira Salazar, more than a year has passed since her deportation and Sanchez remains in limbo in Cuba.

In a statement, ICE said that "in this case, the parent stated they wanted to be removed without the child and left the child in the care of a safe relative in the United States".

While the Trump Administration has rolled back Cubans' special immigration privileges, it has sent thousands of people back to an island Washington itself describes as a "failed state". Cuba is in the grip of its worst ever energy crisis amid a months-long fuel blockade imposed by the US.

Since overwhelmingly voting for Trump in 2024, Cubans in Florida now realise they are just as vulnerable to deportation as any other diaspora. His Republican colleagues may feel the brunt of their frustration at the ballot box.

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