Born2BKing
Veteran
You gotta read the bolded below'It's not personal': Trump's deportation efforts find support among South Florida Latinos
Reaction in South Florida to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has been far more muted than in his first term.
apnews.com
‘It’s not personal': Trump’s deportation efforts find support among South Florida Latinos
MIAMI (AP) — In Hialeah, Florida, a city that’s 95% Hispanic, only three residents showed up at a recent city council meeting to speak against a partnership with the federal government to enforce immigration laws.
The police departments in Hialeah, where three out of four people were born abroad, and Coral Gables, with a majority of Hispanics mostly of Cuban descent, have entered into agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with very little visible pushback.
President Donald Trump’s doubling of immigration arrests and ramping up of deportations could have a disproportionate impact on South Florida, home to some of the nation’s largest communities of Cubans, Venezuelans and other Latin Americans. But reaction here to Trump’s crackdown has been far more muted than during his first term, reflecting both the rightward shift of Latino voters and a belief among some that restrictive border measures are necessary.
“I understand some people feel a little bit betrayed because most of us voted him in,” said Frank Ayllon, a 41-year-old sales representative from Miami. “I feel like a lot of these people are taking it very personal. And it’s not personal. It’s just that you’ve got to understand that this has been an open border for many years.”
Ayllon echoed Trump’s attacks on former President Joe Biden, whose administration saw record-high illegal border crossings before falling by the end of his term. Having once been critical Trump’s 2020 election lies, Ayllon now says he thought the president has had the most action-packed beginning of a term he has ever seen.
A political shift begins to stick
When Miami-Dade County ordered jail officials in 2017 to hold people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, dozens lined up to speak against the order at a public meeting, with some shouting “shame on you.” Lawmakers including former Vice President Kamala Harris, then California’s junior senator, joined large protests outside a local immigrant detention facility.Now in Trump’s second term, the protest movement is splintered. But there’s also been a broader political shift in South Florida and Latino communities.
While Harris in the 2024 presidential election won more than half of Hispanic voters, that support was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 Hispanic voters that Biden won in 2020. Roughly half of Latino men voted for Harris, down from about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.
In the November election, 7 in 10 Hispanic voters in Florida said they favored reducing the number of immigrants who were allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrived at the U.S. border, according to AP VoteCast. That was in line with Florida voters overall.
In 2024, Trump won not just Miami-Dade County but the central Florida counties of Seminole and Osceola, where many Venezuelans have immigrated, and made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of Pennsylvania. He also flipped several South Texas border counties that were Democratic bastions for decades.
What initially catapulted Trump’s popularity in South Florida was his stance on the socialist governments that many exiles and their families fled, along with his focus on boosting growth and reducing prices. But at a rally in Miami days before announcing his third White House bid in November 2022, Trump said that, contrary to the belief of some, Hispanics liked his vows to crack down on illegal immigration.
“When I talked about the border, you know who the biggest fans of that were? (they) were the Hispanics, Latinos,” Trump said. “They knew more about the border than anybody. They knew more about it. Everybody said, ‘Oh, he’s going to hurt himself with Hispanics.’ Actually, it turned out to be the exact opposite.”
Barbara Canales, a 49-year-old certified nursing assistant who lives in Hialeah, said her mother brought her as a young girl from Honduras with a visa and overstayed it. It took them many years to legalize their status and to be able to bring other family members.“That’s why I totally agree that you need to take illegal immigrants out of the United States. I’m sorry, but they should do it,” Canales said, adding that she feels most of the migrants arriving in the past few years are different. “When you come in with a visa is a totally different story.”
Canales says that while the Republican president has made immigration his signature issue, previous Democratic administrations have been just as willing to enforce immigration laws and deport people who had built their lives in the U.S. Former President Barack Obamaearned the nickname “deporter in chief” from advocacy groups who opposed his use of enforcement.
“It’s the reality that if you’re here breaking the rules, you have to suffer the consequences,” Canales said.
can't save everyone...they have to learn
we was different type of illegals these new illegals are different hombre
