Many Cubans voted for Trump - now they're turning on Republican immigration policies

Two years after President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the waiting room of Miami immigration lawyer Ismael Labrador is never empty. His appointment book is filled with relatives of detained immigrants trying to secure their loved ones' release before they are deported back to their countries of origin. Labrador, who is Cuban-born, voted for Trump and says he was blindsided by the scale of the deportations. Although his business is booming, he wishes it were not. "We have relatives living in fear right now, we've had relatives who have been deported back to Cuba, unfortunately," he says. His own cousin was caught up in the dragnet of ICE detentions, and despite his professional efforts, the lawyer was unable to prevent his relative's removal to the island. Cubans have traditionally enjoyed favoured immigration status under provisions enshrined in 1960s-era legislation known as the Cuban Adjustment Act. But widespread arrests across Florida have left the Cuban American community more vulnerable than they had imagined, Labrador says. "The way I put it is that if you don't have a Green Card in the United States, you may be a target." Mobile phone footage has recorded arrests in places previously considered off-limits, including outside schoolyards, at bus stops, at youth sporting events and even inside courthouses at pre-arranged immigration hearings. Few videos have had greater impact than footage of 39-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant Grace Calero and her 19-year-old daughter Giulianna Carriel being arrested in a hospital ward. The pair were driving to work in Kissimmee, central Florida, when they were hit by another car and taken to hospital by ambulance. While they were being treated for their injuries, ICE agents arrested them, and they were deported back to Ecuador within days. The Trump administration has repeatedly said the president was elected on a promise of mass deportations and is delivering on it. "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, says it is targeting anyone who has broken American immigration law and is in the country illegally. On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump repeatedly told rallies, including in Florida: "On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation programme in American history." Labrador was among the 68 percent of Cuban Americans in Florida who voted for Trump two years ago, a decision he now regrets. He says he believed the administration would only deport people with criminal records. "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. He is not alone. Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents Florida's 27th Congressional district, released a video filmed outside the White House in which she distanced herself from the 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 the president. Salazar is locked in a tight race against the Democratic candidate, fellow Cuban American Eliott Rodríguez, and her close association with Trump on immigration could cost her the seat. Not all Cuban Americans have shifted, however. At a recent gathering of Cuban American entrepreneurs in Miami, the atmosphere remained staunchly pro-Trump. "Miami loves Trump, Cuban Americans loves Trump," said real estate businessman Juan Omar Sixto, who acknowledges he entered the US illegally himself six decades earlier but agrees anyone who crossed the border unlawfully should leave. A Florida International University poll released on Thursday found that 76 percent of South Florida Cubans disapprove of the administration's deportations of Cubans with no criminal record, yet 68 percent still plan to vote Republican in November. Beyond Florida, Latino support for the president is declining. Trump beat Kamala Harris in Florida by 56.1 percent to 43 percent in the last election, the biggest margin of victory there since 1988, in part thanks to Latino communities. But a recent NBC News/Telemundo poll of 8,000 registered Latino voters showed nearly 60 percent favour Democratic control of Congress, against 35 percent who want a Republican victory. The high cost of living is a major driver of discontent, but for many Hispanics, stories like that of Heydi Sanchez resonate. Sanchez, who left Cuba in 2019 during the island's economic collapse and crossed the border illegally, was detained at a scheduled ICE appointment in Tampa and deported to Havana in shackles within a day, separated from her young US citizen daughter, Kailyn. She now lives in the rural province of Mayabeque, more than a year after her removal and despite expressions of support from politicians including Salazar. In a statement, ICE said Sanchez "stated they wanted to be removed without the child and left the child in the care of a safe relative in the United States." With Cubans' special immigration privileges rolled back and thousands returned to an island Washington itself describes as a "failed state," amid its worst ever energy crisis, Republican colleagues of the president may feel the brunt of Cuban American frustration at the ballot box.