USA: Latinos turn their backs on Republicans ahead of congressional elections

"I'm sad and disappointed," says Maria Fernanda Perez, who immigrated to the USA from Venezuela and runs a restaurant in the city of Doral in the state of Florida - within walking distance of a Trump golf club. “I thought the economy would improve,” explains the 32-year-old, who voted for the real estate mogul in November 2024.

But the reality is sobering, she reports. Three of their employees no longer come to work for fear of deportation. Their sales fell by 40 percent because people stopped going out. "My whole family, all my friends have ongoing immigration proceedings, and they no longer work, they no longer go about their everyday lives," says Perez.

The restaurant manager is not an isolated case: A survey by the New York Times and Siena College showed that 66 percent of Hispanic respondents are critical of Trump's administration. About 78 percent would prefer if Democrats took control of Congress from Republicans.

Many Latinos feel deceived, especially by Trump's deportation offensive. During the election campaign he announced measures against “murderers” and “rapists”. But now more than a thousand people are being held in custody every day.

In addition, horror reports about the immigration authority ICE are increasing. In early October, ICE agents in New York shot and killed a Dominican Republic man in his car while his 5-year-old son watched in the back seat. In July, ICE officers shot and killed a Mexican and a Colombian in their cars.

Attorney Carlos Bermudez receives calls every day from desperate people going through immigration procedures. »They don't go out anymore, they can't go to work. It's constant psychological pressure," reports the 47-year-old.

Bermudez describes himself as a Republican. He comes “from a country where communism and socialism have taken root,” says the Venezuelan native. He condemns these ideologies. "But I don't agree with what the extreme wing of the party is currently doing," he says of Trump and his followers.

The vice mayor of Doral, the city in the state of Florida, is also a Republican. “There is uncertainty, there is fear,” complains Rafael Pineyro. Trump's policies threaten to wipe out the approval the party has gained in recent years among Cuban, Venezuelan and other Latino voters in Florida. There have been “bad decisions,” particularly in economic and immigration policy, says Pineyro, without mentioning Trump by name.