The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it would be pausing all immigration applications from Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan and 16 other nationals from countries considered to be “high risk.” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) is now calling out the Trump administration for its “un-American” immigration pause.
The new directive to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) comes after the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C. With the directive comes changes to green card applications, citizenship ceremonies, and pending asylum claims, regardless of the applicant’s country of origin.
In a statement to The Miami Herald, Rep. Salazar broke with the Trump administration and decried the directive, suggesting that it results in the “collective punishment” of “the innocent for the sins of the guilty.”
Rep. Salazar, who has pushed her DIGNITY Act as “a serious, workable solution to America’s immigration crisis,” commented that “freezing asylum, green card, and citizenship processes is not the answer.” “It punishes hardworking, law-abiding immigrants who followed every step of the legal process.” “That is unfair, un-American, and it goes against everything this country stands for,” she added, noting that “background checks already exist to stop terrorists and they should.”
Richard Lamondin, a Democrat who is looking to unseat Rep. Salazar in 2026, responded to the Florida Republican’s statement on social media, commenting that “Salazar spent years enabling Trump’s attacks on immigrants, voting for his agenda and backing him every step of the way.”
Lamondin observed that Rep. Salazar is “scrambling to distance herself because it’s become unpopular and we’re coming for her seat.”“She’s as much to blame as the administration that created these policies,” he warned. “And the voters I’m talking to haven’t forgotten that.”
Last week, Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) and Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) released a joint statement regarding the directive to suspend immigration applications. They denounced the Biden administration's alleged "reckless abandonment of border security," commenting that stronger border security could have prevented the deaths of Laken Riley in Georgia, Jocelyn Nungaray in Texas, and others.
