Miami – After four months with President Donald Trump to the helm, Reinerio de la Torre says he is waiting to see if the president fulfills his promises.
The 56 -year -old electrician, who came from Cuba 18 years ago, voted for Trump in November. But he says that the president has gone too far with immigration, and does not like to see that working people are deported. De la Torre also does not agree with the prohibition of partial travel of Cuba, saying that “the visas must decide the case -by -case case.”
“But it is still early in the presidency and we have to give him time to see what he does,” said De la Torre on the outskirts of the City of Hialeah, where the roosters were heard in the background. The street that extends recently was named after the president.
Patricia, 52, who refused to give her last name, echoed the feeling of De la Torre. “He sport innocent people, and I don’t like tariffs, but maybe in the end it will be for better,” he said.
About 70% of US Cubans living in Florida voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, and their support in Hialeah, a working-class city in Miami-Dade County with a solid American Cuban population, was one of the strongest. Trump made a demonstration here a year before the elections and the increase in support he received helped him become the first Republican president to win Miami-Dade County from George Hw Bush in 1988.
While Trump’s support among US Cubans is still strong and few seem to regret their vote, concerns about immigration policies have begun to increase among the multiple voters with which NBC News spoke, especially among the most recent arrivals.
American Cubans began to go to Trump in large quantities during their first presidency, since it hardened US sanctions against Cuba, prohibiting flights to most of the island and restricting remittances. Many American Cubans are welcome a hard line policy that fled from the communist island.
A historical wave has brought more than half a million Cuban migrants to the United States since 2022. Cubans had allowed US residents quite easily through the Cuba adjustment law, but now Trump’s immigration policies have left some Cuban immigrants in the legal limbo.
Trump also revoked the legal status of migrants who entered the US. Through the CBP application of the Biden era, which temporarily allowed migrants to live in the United States, and ended the probation program that gave a temporary legal status to 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
While the United States has regularly deported Cubans since 2017, some recent deportations have surprised some. The news that families are separated or from a former political prisoner who revokes have alarmed some in the community.
The partial travel prohibition of the Trump administration on Cuba now makes it impossible for Cubans to obtain a visa to visit the family, something that was already cumbersome since the United States stopped processing visas at the Havana embassy in 2017. For most visas, Cubans had to travel to a third country, often Guyana, which is out of reach for most Cubans.
But US Cubans voted for Trump for more than hard line policies against Cuba, and most seemed happy with his presidency so far.
Mirta Marino, 78, a retired bank worker, said: “Trump is making difficult political decisions, but they are necessary to fix the country.”
She said that many Cubans come to this country claiming political persecution, but often visit the island after becoming US residents. Marino, who arrived in 1980 during the Mariel Boatlift, said he never returned. She also believes that some people come to this country and take advantage of the benefits without working.
A few miles away in the city of Doral, known for their concentration of Venezuelans, many clients at the popular restaurant El Arepazo also firmly support Trump.
Rodrigo Torres, 22, owner of a business, said he feels bad for all Venezuelans affected by Trump’s immigration policies, but said he helps to get the country’s criminals.
Around half of the deported persons in February had no criminal record and more than half of those who were in detention in ICE do not have criminal charges or convictions, according to ICE data.
“There are people who are deported for no reason,” Torres said. “But I would still vote for Trump about Harris.”
As in Hialeah, a solid majority in doral voted for Trump in 2024. The city is home to one of the president’s resorts, where he celebrated events and demonstrations before the elections.
Venezuelans can be the group most affected by Trump’s immigration policies. Since I was campaigning, Trump spoke regularly about Venezuelan gangs in the United States
“They are sending us to our criminals in Caracas, Venezuela,” Trump said in a demonstration in July 2024 in Doral, claiming that Venezuela had sent “all his drug traffickers, his criminals and most of his prisoners to our country.”
Once in office, Trump used a eighteenth -century war law to send hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, claiming that they had links with the Trena de Aragua gang, something that many of the families and lawyers of the migrants have played. Men have not allowed us to refute any affiliation of gangs or contact lawyers or families. Trump also revoked special legal protections known as temporary protected status for about 350,000 Venezuelans who had been living and working legally in the United States.
Outside El Arepazo, Carolina Villalobo said she did not vote in the presidential elections because she is not yet a citizen, but said she never liked Trump.
“He is very aggressive,” he said. “I agree that the country must be cleaned and criminals must be deported, but it must be done with more touch.”
But among his extended family, including brothers and nephews, he is alone.
“My whole family continues to support Trump,” Villalobo said.
‘They are certainly feeling the pressure’
The firm support for Trump in southern Florida is not surprising for Fernand Amandi, a democratic consultant and pollster in Miami.
“I have not seen a single person who voted for Trump in November 2024 to leave and say: I made a mistake,” he said. “What I have seen is a lot of rationalization, justification and lack of will to admit that their votes have contributed to this situation that is now affecting many families already directly.”
In order for a substantial number of voters to change their minds, Amandi said, there should be a situation in which the economy hits the fund and affects them personally.
Anyway, the Democrats are already taking blows to Republican legislators in southern Florida who are re -election in November 2026. Recently, a group called Keep Them Honest launched an advertising campaign on the roads of Miami and the radio that criticizes Republican representatives. Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar on their support for Trump.
Salazar has been publicly critical about some of Trump’s immigration policies and the three legislators have a scheduled meeting for National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem this week.
“They are certainly feeling pressure, they are certainly feeling a violent reaction, but I am still sure that it is to the point that I have made them feel as if they were in existential political danger,” Amandi said of the Republican members of the Florida Congress. “We see it in its lack of commitment or confrontation with the Trump administration directly … they are not criticizing the policies or Trump, saying that this is out of control and unacceptable.”
