A co-founder of a group for Latinas who supportDonald Trumphas excoriated the president on some of theimmigration-related arrests being carried out by his administration, which she called “unacceptable and inhumane”.
In a statementpostedon X over the weekend, Ileana Garcia wrote, “This is not what we voted for.”
The post from theFloridastate senator asserted that she had supported Trump, her fellow Republican, “through thick and thin” and understood the need to remove from the US undocumented people who had committed crimes.
But she criticized how federal authorities hadarrestedpeople at immigration courts across the country despite “credible fear of persecution claims” as the Trump White House ramped up his mass deportation campaign after his second presidency began in January.
Referring toStephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff, Garcia said: “What we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings … all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal.
“This undermines the sense of fairness and justice that the American people value.”
Garcia’s statement expressed solidarity with comments issued Friday by another Florida Republican: US House member Maria Elvira Salazar. Ina statement, Salazar had said the Trump administration’s policies had exposed thousands to deportation and seemed to disregard for the “duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee”.
Salazar’s statement added that those with pending asylum claims deserved “to go through the legal process” while urging theTrump administrationto keep focused on removing “every criminal here illegally”.
Garcia alluded to how she represents Salazar’s congressional district in Florida’s state senate and said her Cuban refugee parents are “now just as American, if not more so, than Stephen Miller”.
“I am deeply disappointed by these actions,” Garcia’s statement said. “And I will not stand down.”
Garcia’s remarks are not the first time she has gotten cross with the Trump administration. She served as a deputy press secretary for the US homeland security department during Trump’s first presidency before leaving the post in March 2019, ahead of his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden and her joining the Florida state senate.
During his unsuccessful 2020 run, Trump’s campaign launched its own official Hispanic outreach coalition and delivered multiple cease and desist letters threatening legal action against the Latinos for Trump organization who had supported his victorious first presidential run, as ABC Newsreportedat the time.
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The Latinas for Trump organization that Garcia helped establish was affiliated with that group, and she said she was stunned to learn of the cease and desist letters in question.
Garcia accused the Trump administration of having “refused to embrace surrogates from the Latino community who did the real groundwork, took the bullets, took the insults and lost their jobs” as he ascended to the presidency.
“It’s actually quite disappointing,” she said then.
Trump won the Florida vote in each of his three presidential campaigns. His Mar-a-Lago resort is in the state as well.