Billboard bashes Rubio, Miami's Republican Congress members as 'traitors' to immigrants

David Catanese, Miami Herald on Apr 4, 2025

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MIAMI — The Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus is taking a campaign against Florida’s Cuban American Republicans not to the airwaves, but the highway.

A new billboard, which is going up on the Palmetto Expressway between Doral and Hialeah, takes aim at Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Reps. María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, and Mario Díaz-Balart, accusing them of failing to stand up for immigrants at risk of deportation.

The placard reads “Traitors” in white lettering on a red backdrop, “To Immigrants, To Miami Dade, To The American Dream,” alongside gray pictures of the public officials.

“Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez y Mario Díaz-Balart have turned their backs on us,” said Abel S. Delgado, president of the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus. “Rather than standing up for our families, they’ve stood silently while immigrant communities are targeted, detained, and deported.”

The timing of the billboard campaign comes just as the Trump administration has been ensnared in legal battles over their deportation tactics, including the use of a wartime law to send hundreds of alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador.

More than a half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela also face the loss of their U.S. legal status as the Trump administration moves to terminate a Biden-era parole program for those countries. It’s part of a broader Trump-led effort to phase out temporary protections, including temporary protected status for Haitians and Venezuelans.

The Democratic caucus is particularly critical of Salazar, who they say falsely credited the Trump administration for a court-ordered extension of TPS for Venezuelans. “This victory belongs to immigrant rights advocates, legal champions, and the federal court system, not the politicians enabling the attacks,” said María Corina Vegas, a board member of the Caucus.

In a statement to the Miami Herald through a spokesman, Salazar said, “Nobody in the United States Congress has fought more for Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans fleeing dictatorship than I have. This is cheap Castro-style propaganda.”

The billboard campaign marks an incremental escalation in local Democratic efforts to mobilize Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade, a county where Republicans have made consequential electoral gains in recent years. Miami’s Cuban American electorate has historically leaned Republican, but immigration remains a volatile issue for communities, particularly when family members and friends face potential removal from the country.

“This ‘Gang of Four’ is lying and betraying a community that trusted them,” said Vegas. “As a Venezuelan American who watched my country fall into dictatorship, I see the warning signs. Their complicity is shameful.”

Spokespeople for Reps. Gimenez and Diaz-Balart did not immediately respond to a request to comment, nor did Rubio’s spokeswoman at the State Department.

During last year’s presidential campaign, a roadside billboard in Miami that drew comparisons between Trump and dictators like Fidel Castro drew anger from supporters of the president. The billboard came down days later, after Salazar said she complained to the advertising company.

The county caucus has vowed to expand its efforts beyond the billboard, but did not provide details on what the next phase would look like.

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