Cuban Americans who backed Trump now confront the fallout of his deportation drive

In Miami, the waiting room of immigration lawyer Ismael Labrador has not been empty since the Trump administration began its crackdown on undocumented immigrants two years ago. His appointment book is full of relatives of detained people, all trying to win their release before they are deported. Business is booming, Labrador says, and he wishes it weren't.

Labrador was born in Cuba, and he is one of the 68% of Florida's Cuban Americans who voted for Donald Trump two years ago. He regrets it now. Cubans have long held a favoured place in US immigration law under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a measure from the 1960s. But widespread ICE arrests across Florida have left the community more exposed than it ever imagined, he says. His rule of thumb: if you don't have a Green Card, you may be a target. His own cousin was caught up in the detentions, and despite his efforts Labrador could not stop him being deported to Cuba. "It's hard when you're fighting against a lot of resources," he says.

Phone videos have captured arrests in places once considered off-limits: outside schoolyards, at bus stops, at youth sporting events, inside courthouses during scheduled immigration hearings. Few images have landed like the footage of Grace Calero, 39, and her 19-year-old daughter, Giulianna Carriel, both Ecuadorean. Two months ago they were driving to work in Kissimmee, central Florida, when another car hit theirs, and they were taken to hospital by ambulance. While they were being treated, ICE agents arrested them. Within days they had been deported to Ecuador.

The White House says Trump was elected to deliver mass deportations and is doing so. A spokeswoman told the BBC last week that he "stopped the invasion of our country" and that more than 3 million people in the country illegally have left as a result of his policies. ICE says it is targeting anyone who has broken immigration law and is in the US illegally. Trump was open about his plans: on the 2024 campaign trail, including at Florida rallies, he repeatedly promised to launch the largest deportation programme in American history on Day One. Labrador and many other Latino voters assumed it would apply only to people with criminal records. "We got blindsided," he argues. He says he voted to remove criminals, alleging that communists came from Cuba under Biden, and never expected the administration to go after everybody.

The sentiment has reached Congress. Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents Florida's 27th District, recently released a video filmed outside the White House saying the deportation policy had gone too far. Addressing Trump, she said the Hispanics who helped him reach the White House in 2024 feel betrayed. She is in a tight race against fellow Cuban American Eliott Rodríguez, the Democratic candidate, and her closeness to Trump on immigration could cost her the seat.

Florida is still Trump country. At a recent gathering of Cuban American entrepreneurs in Miami, real estate businessman Juan Omar Sixto said Miami and Cuban Americans love Trump and agree that anyone who crossed the border illegally should go, though he acknowledged entering the US illegally himself six decades ago. A Florida International University poll released Thursday found a split picture: 76% of South Florida Cubans disapprove of deporting Cubans with no criminal record, yet 68% plan to vote Republican in November. Elsewhere Latino support is slipping. Trump beat Kamala Harris 56.1% to 43% in the state, its biggest margin since 1988, helped by Latino voters. A recent NBC News/Telemundo poll of 8,000 registered Latino voters found nearly 60% want Democrats to control Congress, against 35% who want Republicans. High supermarket and petrol prices are a major factor.

Stories like Heydi Sanchez's also weigh on people. She left Cuba in 2019 as its economy collapsed and crossed the border from Mexico illegally. After nine months in detention she was released under an i-220B Order of Supervision, which lets her stay but carries the constant threat of removal. She settled in Tampa, worked with autistic children and the elderly, and after a difficult and expensive fertility struggle had a daughter, Kailyn. Last year Trump revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans. Sanchez sensed trouble when her regular ICE check-in was moved up without warning. At the appointment she was detained, Kailyn was handed to her father, a US citizen, and within a day Sanchez was on a deportation flight to Havana in shackles, with no right of appeal.

The BBC's Will Grant met her in Mayabeque, a rural province outside Havana, where she lives in a one-bedroom apartment. "It's like the sky fell in and crushed me," she says. On video calls her daughter asks her to come home, and Sanchez tells her she is away working. More than a year on, despite expressions of support from several US politicians, including Salazar, she remains in limbo. ICE says the parent stated she wanted to be removed without the child and left her with a safe relative in the US.

The administration has sent thousands back to an island Washington itself calls a failed state, now suffering its worst energy crisis amid a months-long US fuel blockade. In November, Republicans may feel the frustration of Cuban voters who now see they are as vulnerable as any other diaspora.