Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
Several developments confirm that Donald Trump’s extreme immigration policies have eroded support for his agenda across various sectors, and this, in turn, gives Democrats ammunition if they play their cards right—and could spell bad news for Republicans in the November 3 midterm elections.
USA Today reported that “about 8 in 10 independent voters say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used too much force in its nationwide operations, according to a poll from YouGov, which sampled 1,000 voters in late July. It’s a striking increase from 2025, when polls showed independents more divided on the issue.”
And those independent voters are vital in close elections like the ones anticipated, and when control of Congress—especially the House of Representatives—is at stake.
For example, an AP-NORC poll found that “Trump lost more ground among independents without a college degree than those with one, dropping from 48% during the election and pre-presidency period to 27% during the Iran War period.”
The causes are well known, particularly the high cost of food and housing, the war with Iran, and the excesses of immigration policy. This is especially true given that detentions and deportations not only have a humanitarian impact—such as family separation or the deaths of citizens and immigrants at the hands of ICE—but also deplete the workforce in key sectors, leading to price hikes and the loss of American businesses and jobs, as documented in a new report by America’s Voice.
In 2024, Trump promised that his public policies would lower prices, but exactly the opposite has happened with his tariff war, his war in Iran, and his violent immigration policy.
You can’t lower housing prices if you’re detaining and deporting construction workers. The 170,000 Salvadorans who are about to lose their TPS are concentrated, for example, in the construction industry. Nor can you lower food prices if you continue to detain and deport farmworkers.
“The more we squeeze labor, the more we’re going to increase home prices,” Jim Tobin, president and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), told CNN.
And that pressure is being felt in key electoral states.
In Texas, according to the America’s Voice report, “across the Rio Grande Valley, ICE has arrested more than 9,100 people, nearly one-fifth of all such arrests statewide, and construction jobs there fell 5 percent in the third quarter of 2025, the region’s largest quarterly drop on record.” “If we continue on this trajectory, we will see a lot of businesses fail,” said Ronnie Cavazos, board president of the South Texas Builders Association.
In Florida, for example, the America’s Voice report found that in Orlando, “advocates estimate some restaurants lost roughly 40 percent of their revenue as staff quit out of fear; in Homestead, nursery owners reported delayed deliveries and idled operations as workers stayed home.”
And South Florida has been the epicenter of detentions and deportations of nationals from countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, and others—relatives of citizens who have supported Trump but who have experienced firsthand the impact of his immigration policies.
Miami-Dade County has the highest number of pending deportations in the entire country—nearly 138,000 as of July 27. Furthermore, it is home to thousands of the 350,000 Haitians who lost their TPS and, with it, their work permits and protection from deportation. Their absence will be felt among those who hired their services, particularly for in-home care.
The Miami Herald published an editorial based on the regret of a Haitian restaurant chain owner who voted for Trump and who now, with the cancellation of TPS, is losing employees and customers.
The fact is, many thought it was just anti-immigrant rhetoric on Trump’s part and that it wouldn’t actually happen.
“With promises of reining in immigration and inflation with his business acumen, Trump carried the formerly blue county — a first for a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s…South Florida is now witnessing what Trump’s immigration policies actually look like after the revocation of TPS for Haitians and Venezuelans. Is this what Miami truly voted for?
The question is what will happen on November 3 in the midterm elections now that everyone is aware of the consequences of Trump’s immigration policies.
The original Spanish version is here.
