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The Cuban-American congresswoman from Florida María Elvira Salazar sparked a wave of outrage among MAGA supporters by voting in favor of a discharge motion to advance the bill H.R. 1689, which would extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Haitians in the United States for three years.
The vote resulted in 219-209 in favor. Salazar and his fellow countryman Carlos Giménez were two of the six Republicans who crossed party lines to support the measure. The other four are Don Bacon (Nebraska), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), and Mike Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis, both from New York.
The conservative commentator Eric Daugherty published a message on X in which he referred to Salazar as a " republican" (in quotes) and accused her of voting to protect hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants from deportation.
"Our Republicans need to start acting like Republicans and put Americans first. This is NOT what people voted for in the last election!" wrote Daugherty, who mentioned Salazar's Dignity Act, describing it as "amnesty for millions."
Representative Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, was even more direct and told Fox News that the measure is "another attempt to protect illegal individuals with TPS, including dangerous criminals, obstructing the efforts of the Trump administration to restore the rule of law."
Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona, also stated that "members of Congress have a sacred and exclusive duty to our American voters, not to foreign citizens."
The vote took place at a time of maximum political tension.
On Wednesday, President Trump posted a message on Truth Social in which he blamed Biden and the Democrats for the crime that occurred on April 3 at a Chevron gas station in Fort Myers, Florida, where Rolbert Joachin, a 40-year-old Haitian who entered the country illegally in 2022, killed a woman with a hammer.
Joachin had received TPS under the Biden administration - which expired in 2024 - and had a deportation order. "This animal was allowed to stay here because the Biden administration granted it, to him and all Haitians, 'Temporary Protected Status', a program that has been massively abused and fraudulent," wrote Trump.
Salazar, however, has maintained a consistent stance in defense of TPS.
On March 30, he publicly stated: "TPS exists for a reason: to protect people who cannot return home safely."
On April 3, in an interview, he predicted a "migration shift" from Trump and stated that he "realized that the immigration policies against Venezuelans and Cubans in the first year were ineffective," expressing hope that the new leadership of the Department of Homeland Security would prioritize the deportation of migrants with criminal records only.
The Dignity Law of 2025, presented by Salazar in July of last year had already sparked criticism from MAGA figures like Charlie Kirk, who referred to it as "soft amnesty" that would put an end to mass deportations. Salazar then responded that the proposal "is neither amnesty nor a pathway to citizenship."
The case of Haitian TPS is also pending before the Supreme Court, which has scheduled arguments for April 29 regarding the cancellation of the program decreed by the Trump administration, which was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on February 3 due to potential discriminatory motivations.
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