Several Republican candidates are emphasizing the removal of criminals rather than broad deportation language as the Nov. 3 midterms approach, while Democrats remain divided between abolishing ICE and restructuring the agency.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — Immigration remains a major campaign issue heading into the Nov. 3 midterm elections, but some Republican candidates have moved away from the broad “mass deportation” language that featured prominently in the 2024 campaign, instead stressing enforcement against people with serious criminal records.
The shift does not amount to a Republican retreat from immigration enforcement overall. GOP campaigns continue to spend heavily on the issue, and Republican candidates including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have embraced expanded cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But in several closely watched House districts, Republican candidates have drawn distinctions between deporting dangerous offenders and targeting longtime residents without serious criminal histories.
The change in emphasis has been developing for months. In March, White House and Republican congressional officials advised GOP lawmakers to move away from talking about “mass deportations” and focus their public message on removing criminals, according to reporting at the time. House Speaker Mike Johnson subsequently described the party as being in a “course correction mode” after some Hispanic and Latino voters viewed immigration enforcement as overzealous.
The issue has become particularly visible as public opinion on deportations has shifted since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
A Pew Research Center survey of 3,592 U.S. adults conducted April 6-12 found 52% saying the Trump administration was doing too much to deport immigrants living in the country illegally. Thirty-one percent said the administration was doing about the right amount, while 15% said it was doing too little. The poll’s overall margin of error was plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
The partisan divide remained substantial. Eighty-four percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the administration was doing too much, compared with 19% of Republicans and Republican leaners. Among Republicans, 53% said the administration was doing about the right amount and 28% said it was doing too little. Sixty-five percent of Hispanic adults surveyed said the administration was doing too much.
That political environment has produced different responses across individual Republican campaigns.
Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., has urged immigration agents to focus enforcement on criminals rather than people who are otherwise obeying the law, summarizing his approach as “gangbangers, not grandmas.” Evans, a former police officer, has also raised concerns about ICE assertions concerning entry into homes using administrative warrants rather than warrants signed by judges. His position was among several examples detailed in reporting on how candidates are handling immigration.
Evans has not opposed immigration enforcement generally. He has said agents should concentrate on dangerous offenders and has defended targeted operations while criticizing broader tactics he believes could sweep in otherwise law-abiding immigrants.
Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., has taken a similar approach in California’s Central Valley, where agriculture depends heavily on immigrant labor.
Valadao faced criticism from Democratic challenger Randy Villegas, a political science professor, who said, “Kern County was ground zero for these ICE raids last year,” and accused Valadao of failing to adequately respond while supporting increased funding for immigration enforcement.
The January 2025 operations referenced by Villegas, however, were conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration rather than under Trump. Valadao responded at the time by saying he had contacted CBP and had been told the operations were aimed at known criminals or people linked to criminal organizations.
“I think we can all agree known criminals should be expelled from the United States, but it is crucial that future operations are communicated clearly to avoid causing any further alarm among our farmworkers,” Valadao said in his January 2025 statement. He urged authorities to prioritize “criminals rather than those responsible for producing our nation’s food supply.”
Valadao has also supported an earned legal status for some longtime immigrants and backed the bipartisan Dignity Act, which would establish a temporary legal status for qualifying immigrants who meet specified requirements and pass criminal background checks.
The divisions are different on the Democratic side, where candidates are debating not only how ICE should operate but whether the agency should continue to exist.
At the Democratic National Committee’s August meeting in Austin, Texas, a resolution calling on Democratic members of Congress to write legislation abolishing ICE advanced from the Resolutions Committee on a 25-12 vote with one abstention. The abolition resolution was later approved by the full DNC along with a competing resolution calling for “concrete reforms” to the agency. Both measures were nonbinding and do not establish the Democratic Party’s 2028 platform.
The simultaneous approval of the two positions reflected an unresolved disagreement within the party rather than a single policy position.
Some Democratic candidates have adopted the abolition position outright.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has called for eliminating ICE and criticized Democrats who have resisted using that language. Before Michigan’s Senate primary, he described reluctance to support abolition as “the kind of cowardice that we don’t need from Democrats.” El-Sayed had publicly called for abolishing ICE before entering the 2026 race.
Other Democratic nominees have rejected abolition while calling for significant restructuring.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for an open U.S. Senate seat, has said the border should be treated “like our front porch,” with both a welcome mat and a lock on the door.
Talarico has said immigration enforcement should concentrate on cartels, gang members and human traffickers. Earlier this year, he said ICE should pursue “gang members and human traffickers, not moms and babies” while calling for changes to asylum processing, ports of entry and legal pathways for employers to hire migrant labor.
His Republican opponent, Paxton, has taken a substantially different position.
Paxton has made immigration enforcement a central part of his Senate campaign and used his position as Texas attorney general to assist federal authorities. His office announced in January that its Criminal Investigation Division detained 50 people during operations across the Houston area and transferred them to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for deportation proceedings.
Paxton’s office operates under a federal 287(g) agreement that allows designated state personnel to perform specified immigration enforcement functions in cooperation with ICE. His office described the Houston operations as taking place at businesses and locations it said were connected with criminal activity.
The contrast between Talarico and Paxton illustrates why immigration has not disappeared as a campaign issue even as some Republicans modify how they discuss enforcement.
Republican campaigns spent approximately $53 million on immigration-related political advertising from January through June, compared with about $17 million for Democrats, according to an NPR analysis of AdImpact data. Republican immigration advertising appeared in 88 races across 27 states, while Democratic advertising appeared in 20 races across 11 states.
For Republicans, immigration was the second-highest spending subject in television advertising during that period behind Trump himself. For Democrats, ICE ranked third behind Trump and health care, according to the analysis.
That spending underscores the distinction between modifying a campaign message and abandoning the underlying issue.
“A lot of Republican candidates are struggling to figure out a message,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University who has studied Republican politics and the Department of Homeland Security.
Dallek said different Republican candidates are emphasizing different aspects of immigration policy as they try to address voters who support border enforcement but object to some ICE tactics.
The most direct Republican break with Trump on immigration has come from Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida.
Salazar released a bilingual campaign advertisement Sept. 17 filmed outside the White House in which she told Trump that some of his immigration enforcement policies had “gone too far.”
“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar said.
Trump responded the following day by defending his record and saying Salazar had become softer on border enforcement. He said he understood her position but did not share it.
Salazar represents Florida’s 27th Congressional District in Miami-Dade County, where approximately 74% of residents are Hispanic, according to reporting on the race. She is seeking another term against Democratic nominee Eliott Rodriguez, a former Miami television anchor who, like Salazar, is Cuban American.
An internal poll commissioned by Rodriguez’s campaign and conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International from Aug. 25 through Aug. 30 found Salazar and Rodriguez tied at 45% after undecided voters were pressed to indicate which candidate they leaned toward. The survey included 600 likely voters and carried a reported margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Because the poll was conducted for Rodriguez’s campaign, its findings represent one campaign-sponsored measurement of the district rather than an independent forecast of the outcome.
Salazar had won reelection in 2024 by more than 20 percentage points, making the internal poll a notable contrast with the district’s previous result.
The immigration debate therefore cuts in multiple directions less than six weeks before Election Day.
Some Republican candidates continue to support Trump’s broader enforcement agenda while attempting to distinguish between people with serious criminal records and other immigrants living illegally in the United States. Others, including Salazar, have openly criticized parts of the administration’s approach.
Democrats, meanwhile, remain divided between candidates who want ICE abolished and those who argue for maintaining immigration enforcement while replacing or reforming the agency.
The competing positions leave both parties confronting the same political problem from different directions: how to address border security and immigration enforcement at a time when the administration’s deportation effort has drawn increased public concern while immigration remains a heavily funded campaign issue.
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