President Donald Trump used his Truth Social account Saturday to publicly criticize Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL), a business-backed Republican who has been promoting an amnesty measure she calls the “Digndad” bill.
Salazar’s bill would legalize and admit an estimated 17 million migrants, and she has described the measure as a way to supply “cheap labor” to employers.
Trump’s criticism comes despite his August endorsement of Salazar, who went on to win her primary with 81 percent of the vote.
The president’s posts appear aimed at discouraging other House Republicans from backing Salazar’s effort to force a vote on the bill through a discharge petition, a procedural maneuver that could bring the legislation to passage during the lame-duck session following the November election. That timing would allow retiring GOP members to cast a favorable vote for business donors without facing voters again.
Salazar’s push follows a mid-September video in which she criticized Trump’s mass deportation enforcement while also praising him. In the video, she said:
President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 percent of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.
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, and only you can do that.
Trump’s Truth Social posts rejected that framing. According to the posts, Salazar is being financially backed and praised by several major GOP donor groups, as well as by Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
Trump’s posts also note that Salazar has support from Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) and other Republicans he says favor foreign nationals over American citizens, along with backing from Democrats who he says similarly prioritize migrants over citizens.
Numerous House Republicans have signaled support for the bill, which critics describe as a corporate-backed giveaway tied to amnesty.
Add comment