Key Trump policy becomes 'political kryptonite' for South Texas Republicans

Texas Republicans spent years building relationships within the Latino community, in hopes they could pull some of the conservatives over to their side. They were successful, too, until President Donald Trump stepped in.

The aggressive immigration crackdown has now become "political kryptonite" for South Texas Republicans, who touted the idea of tough border security before it turned into mass deportations, violence and shootings, Politico reported Sunday.

Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R‑Texas), who flipped a 120‑year Democratic stronghold in 2022, watched as her district Trump won by 18 points in 2024, has shifted. No one is calling for mass deportations anymore. While Trump pledged to go after the "worst of the worst," his Department of Homeland Security is nabbing children, mothers, American citizens, people with valid visas and those with work permits.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), whose district runs along the Mexico border, wants the GOP to focus on what he calls "convicted criminal illegal aliens."

But there simply aren't enough immigrant murderers, rapists and other criminals to meet the 3,000-person daily mandate set by Trump's White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.

Many Republican lawmakers are trying to distance themselves from the Trump administration after two shooting deaths of American protesters sent approval polls into a deeper slump.

“President Trump made a promise, and he’s kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” De La Cruz told Politico. “Now we’re at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”

Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist, told Politico that the GOP had a brilliant way to address the situation, then threw it all away.

“With the border secure and Latinos responding to ICE raids and government overreach, the districts that Republicans thought were their future a year ago are likely to be their undoing. Hard to find another situation in the past 50 years where a political party has squandered a generational opportunity like this," he said.

Daniel Guerrero, CEO of the South Texas Builders Association, told Politico that the federal raids and attacks on random construction sites is causing huge problems for the industry.

“The sentiment is pretty clear across the table, that nobody really expected this magnitude of enforcement,” said Guerrero. He confessed that it is what he voted for in 2024 when he cast a ballot for Trump.

“There’s limited resources, period. And we want those limited resources to be focused on the worst of the worst, the criminal immigrants that have come in,” De La Cruz said. “We have legal immigrants in our district who have work visas that they don’t want to go out to work because some may have fear about the process that is currently being administered.”

But Guerrero isn't giving De La Cruz any props.

“People feel abandoned because you never showed face, and now that there’s an actual crisis, you want to show face?” he said. “It’s like, dude, it’s a little too late, man.”

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