A House bill written by a Florida Republican designed to allow a stream of immigrants to stay in the work is creating a schismwithin the party with dueling PACs planning to spend millions backing separate lawmaker group on either side of the debate.
At issue is Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar’s (R-FL) Dignity Act, which is backed by business groups seeking a reliable source of workers, and has hard-line anti-immigrant Republicans up in arms.
According to Politico’s Samuel Benson, the clash exposes a fundamental divide within the party between business-backed pragmatists and Trump-aligned hardliners. The battle lines are already drawn. Homeland PAC, backed by immigration-restrictionist Republicans, launched last week specifically to primary some of the bill’s 20 House GOP co-sponsors. Meanwhile, the pro-immigration American Business Immigration Coalition Action has secured $1.2 million through its Building America’s Economy PAC and is seeking to raise $5 million total to protect the bill’s Republican backers.
According to Ryan Girdusky, the GOP strategist behind Homeland PAC, “Donald Trump is not going to be around forever. The goal is to focus and to put our efforts into the future, and make sure Republicans know that the demand for stronger borders and for reforms to legal immigration and illegal immigration means something. We are not going to roll over and go back to business as usual.” Politico is reporting the Dignity Act doesn’t create citizenship pathways, but it’s being treated like amnesty. The bipartisan bill would allow millions of unauthorized immigrants to eventually gain work permits and remain in the U.S. legally — a modest reform that has triggered an “onslaught of criticism” from conservative MAGA influencers and Trump allies who view it as a dealbreaker. Vulnerable Republicans, including Reps. Gabe Evans (Colo.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), have signed on, putting themselves directly in the crosshairs of primary challengers backed by hardline PACs. In the midst of the latest fight, the White House is quietly dialing back hardline messaging; abandoning the phrase “mass deportations” in public messaging and now focuses on deporting the “worst of the worst” — a softening that exposes the gap between Trump’s rhetoric and actual governance.
The conservative establishment is mobilizing against the bill, Politico’s Benson is reporting. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannoncalled it the “s—- American workers” bill. Conservative pundit Megyn Kelly warned it “is not going to go over well with the GOP base, with the America Firsters.” Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) condemned the bill as a betrayal of Trump’s base. For vulnerable Republicans, supporting the Dignity Act means facing primary challenges from Trump-backed candidates — a political calculus that favors hardliners in a party increasingly defined by immigration extremism.
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