Several Republican candidates in competitive races are criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, signaling that they see it as a vulnerability in a political landscape that seems poised to favor Democrats.
The immigration agenda, a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s campaigns, has led to major deportation operations across the country — including in some of the states where Republicans are actively breaking with him on the issue.
Just this week, former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican running for Congress in the state’s competitive 2nd Congressional District, told reporters that ICE should prioritize “people in the gangs and criminals first” while sharing that his son’s father-in-law is currently facing deportation despite holding a work permit.
“He came from a country that’s not to the liking of certain people in Washington,” LePage said at a press conference in Augusta, Maine, on Monday, but didn’t say more about the man. “That’s not right.”
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LePage’s campaign did not respond to The Washington Sun’s request for comment. The state where LePage is running was the site of an immigration enforcement operation in January. In July, federal immigration agents shot a man in Biddeford, Maine, and prompted Republican Sen. Susan Collins to call on Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to cease all non-essential traffic stops in the state. The administration did, until Trump reversed the decision.
Several issues are causing rifts between the White House and Republican candidates, particularly those in tough races. Earlier this week, for example, two Republicans — Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson and Michigan senate candidate Mike Rogers — called for a swift end to the president’s war in Iran.
Immigration has been a similar lightning rod, and Democrats are on the offensive over it. They see the administration’s policies on immigration as an issue that will move voters towards their party come November.
The Trump administration has implemented a large-scale mass deportation campaign that has involved sweeping enforcement with a historic amount of funding going toward the Department of Homeland Security, and more than 610,000 people across the country detained since the president’s inauguration last January, according to The Marshall Project.
The Trump administration has increasingly restricted pathways of legal immigration as well, resulting in many people losing their legal status and protections. The aggressive immigration tactics appear to be posing a problem for candidates as the midterms inch closer.
The Republican who has perhaps been the most direct in criticizing the president’s immigration agenda is from Florida. Rep. María Elvira Salazar released an ad last week criticizing Trump’s immigration policies.
Salazar, who is also running in a competitive district, warned Trump that “some of your immigration enforcements have gone too far.” “Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy,” the lawmaker, who represents a heavily Latino and immigrant district, continued.
Texas Rep. Monica De La Cruz, whose district is rated “lean Republican” by Cook Political Report, put out an ad earlier this month featuring the story of a DACA recipient who was detained by ICE. The ad suggests that De La Cruz helped release the man from detention.
De La Cruz’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Her state has also seen high-profile consequences of Trump’s immigration agenda play out, including ICE officers shooting a man in Austin over the weekend. The man’s lawyer told CNN he is facing partial paralysis. That incident happened just two months after officers fatally shot a man in Houston.
The White House did not comment on the Republicans distancing themselves from Trump.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said he understood Salazar’s position, but that he just doesn’t “happen to be there.”
“She’s got a little bit soft on the border,” Trump, who has endorsed Salazar’s reelection bid, said. “I understand that.”
While those three candidates mark recent breaks in the party, at least one other vulnerable Republican has been holding the immigration aspect of the Trump agenda at arm’s length for longer.
New York Rep. Mike Lawler, who is running in one of the most competitive districts in the nation and who like Salazar and De La Cruz voted for last summer’s spending bill that gave record-level funding to DHS, has also praised the president’s high number of deportations. But he has called for DHS to reassess its tactics.
“Americans are increasingly concerned about the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement operations,” Lawler wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times following fatal shootings by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. His campaign referred The Sun to the op-ed.
In an ad that first aired last week, Lawler touted his support for the Dignity Act — a bill co-sponsored by Salazar that would create steps through which long-term undocumented immigrants would be able to apply for legal status.
“I’m working hard on the Dignity Act, so that everyone can reach the American Dream,” Lawler said in Spanish in the ad.
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