A Republican congresswoman has released a campaign ad criticizing Donald Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement, in the latest sign that a key plank of the president’s 2024 re-election campaign has become a liability for his congressional allies ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Florida’s María Elvira Salazar says in a 30-second ad. “In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy.”

Salazar represents a competitive Miami-area district that is nearly three-quarters Hispanic, and where Trump won by a 15-percentage point margin two years ago after a campaign in which he promised to carry out “mass deportations”. While his administration has implied that those targeted would be undocumented immigrants who committed crimes in the United States, in reality, a substantial portion of the people arrested since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 have no criminal record.

Salazar won re-election by a 20 percentage point margin in 2024 but this year is facing a significant challenge from Eliott Rodriguez, the Democratic nominee and a former television news anchor. A poll conducted for his campaign late last month found him tied with Salazar.

“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar said in the ad. “You can be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I’m not talking about giving them amnesty. I’m talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land.”

First elected in 2020, the congresswoman is a champion of the Dignity Act, an immigration reform proposal in the House of Representatives that would create a pathway for some undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status.

Salazar’s ad is the latest instance of Republican lawmakers seeking to put distance between themselves and Trump ahead of the 3 November elections, in which Democrats are vying to take back both the House and Senate. With gas prices high due to the war with Iran and Trump’s public approval low – including on key issues like handling of immigration – Democrats increasingly believe their candidates are competitive even in heavily Republican seats.