Amid the Trump administration’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown, a reported surge in the arrests of Cubans isn’t merely a moral crisis — for Republicans, it could pose an electoral crisis as well.
A new study from the conservative-leaning Cato Institute found that due in part to a dramatic drop in the number of green card approvals, the Trump administration has overseen a massive spike in arrests. The report specifically found that “ending Cuban Adjustment Act green card approvals has certainly helped ICE to increase arrests of Cubans by 463 percent.”
This report aligns with President Donald Trump’s campaign vow to pursue the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history and likely is welcome news to the conservatives who have complained that the administration hasn’t deported enough people. At the same time, the report arguably adds to ongoing questions about how the White House’s crackdown — which appears to be one of the reasons for Trump’s cratering poll numbers — will affect Republicans’ electoral hopes in the months, or even years, ahead.
The potential political fallout could be especially felt in Florida, where conservative Cubans have been seen as a key voting bloc for upholding GOP control. Even as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to impose gerrymandered districts that could potentially help Republicans gain several House seats in this year’s midterm elections, recent swings toward Democrats in the state’s elections — aided by Latino voters — raise the risk that the gerrymandering push could backfire by making some GOP-held seats more vulnerable.
Even before DeSantis presented the map, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries denounced the governor’s gambit as brazenly in defiance of Florida’s laws against partisan gerrymandering. Last week, the New York Democrat openly warned DeSantis that it could backfire.
The warning has also come from the right. The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board published an op-ed on Tuesday warning that “making a blue district more Republican means making a red one less Republican.” The Journal also said Florida’s gerrymandering could backfire if the foundation of Trump’s Latino support crumbles:
How confident are Republicans that November won’t bring a blue wave that swamps their House levee? Not so long ago, President Obama won Florida twice. Mr. Trump’s success in 2024 included gains among minority voters, and the exit poll says he won 58% of Latinos in Florida. The risk of thinning out the GOP’s margins is that a straight-line extrapolation of political trends can turn out to be wrong.
Rep. Maria Salazar, a Florida Republican whose parents were Cuban exiles, has been warning about Latinos turning away from the GOP in November’s midterms. But Salazar, who has introduced legislation that sets forth a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, appears to have become a pariah among hard-liners in the MAGA movement.
The open question of the GOP’s support among Latinos is important context for the Trump administration’s authoritarian efforts to spark regime change in Cuba, an act that could prove helpful in shoring up right-wing support among Cubans and help mute any backlash Republicans receive over Trump’s immigration agenda.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.