在9月下旬一个晴朗微风的周六早晨，佛罗里达州第二十七国会选区国会候选人埃利奥特·罗德里格斯带着两名竞选志愿者走在小哈瓦那的街头。他们正激烈辩论着敲门拜访话术中一句核心短语“Sorry I missed you”（很遗憾没见到您）的最佳翻译，最终确定为“抱歉我们没有见到彼此”。不远处，几只公鸡在古巴纪念大道公园的边缘奔跑。
On a bright, breezy Saturday morning in late September, Eliott Rodriguez, a congressional candidate in Florida’s Twenty-seventh District, walked the streets of Little Havana with two of his campaign volunteers. They were in the throes of a debate over the best translation for “Sorry I missed you,” an essential phrase in the door-knocking lexicon, eventually settling on “” (“I’m sorry we didn’t see each other”). Nearby, roosters scampered along the edge of Cuba Memorial Boulevard Park.
罗德里格斯是一位身材匀称、现年70岁的古巴裔美国人，他是一名民主党人，也是当地前新闻主播，这使他成为当地的一位知名人物。不出所料，在选举日到来前的很长一段时间里，他一直在努力争取这个以拉美裔为主的选区内的拉美裔选民的支持——该选区涵盖了迈阿密中部的大部分地区，而这一群体近年来一直在向右转。
Rodriguez, a trim, seventy-year-old Cuban American, is a Democrat and former local news anchor, which makes him a well-known figure in the area. Predictably, he has spent much of the lead-up to Election Day working to win over Latino voters in the majority-Hispanic district, which covers much of central Miami—a group that, in recent years, has moved to the right.
2020年，尽管该选区投票支持了乔·拜登，但还是险胜选出了获得唐纳德·特朗普背书的共和党人玛丽亚·埃尔维拉·萨拉查进入国会。2022年她再次当选，而在2024年，特朗普赢下了该选区，萨拉查也以超过20个百分点的优势轻松获胜。但萨拉查——令人惊叹的是，她同样也是一位古巴裔的前新闻主播——现在正面对着她的选区因经济压力和拉美裔极其反感的移民打击行动而日益对总统产生逆反心理的局面。
In 2020, despite voting for Joe Biden, the district narrowly elected Republican María Elvira Salazar, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump, to Congress. In 2022, she was reëlected, and, in 2024, Trump carried the district, and Salazar cruised to victory, winning by more than twenty points. But Salazar, who, amazingly, is also a Cuban American former news anchor, is now reckoning with her district increasingly turning on the President amid economic pressure and an immigration crackdown that is extremely unpopular among Latinos.
在竞选刚开始时，萨拉查的竞选策略似乎是继续拥护特朗普及其政治运动，尽管迈阿密是全美逮捕人数最多的城市，面临着激增的驱逐出境潮。去年，她宣称位于大沼泽地、臭名昭著的移民拘留中心“短吻鳄恶魔岛”的设施达到了“最高标准”，并且当特朗普政府宣布终止针对委内瑞拉人、海地人和尼加拉瓜人的临时保护身份、从而颠覆了她选区内无数人的生活和企业时，她避免了对该政府的批评。
At the onset of the race, it seemed as if Salazar’s campaign strategy was to continue her embrace of Trump and the movement, even alongside a surge in deportations in Miami, the nation’s leader in arrests. Last year, she declared that the facilities at Alligator Alcatraz, the infamous immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, met the “highest standards,” and she avoided criticizing the Trump Administration when it announced the terminations of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans, upending countless lives and businesses in her district.
但几周前，萨拉扎尔发布了一则广告，在移民执法问题上与特朗普决裂，并警告他，帮助他在2024年获胜的拉美裔选民感到被背叛——“总统先生，您的一些移民执法行动已经走得太远了。”——他因此加入了全国多名试图与总统保持距离的共和党候选人的行列。随着选举日临近，特朗普的支持率已降至历史低点，目前徘徊在中低30%的区间，而NBC新闻最近的一项民调显示，比起近三十年来的任何一次中期选举，更多选民认为他们今年11月的投票是对白宫的反对信号。
But, a few weeks ago, Salazar released an ad breaking with Trump over immigration enforcement and warning him that the Latino voters who helped him win in 2024 felt betrayed—“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.”—joining the ranks of several G.O.P. candidates nationwide attempting to distance themselves from the President. As Election Day approaches, Trump’s approval rating has hit a record low, currently hovering in the mid- to low thirties, and a recent poll from NBC News showed that a higher percentage of voters consider their vote this November to be a signal of opposition to the White House than in any other midterm in nearly thirty years.
也许正是因此，萨拉扎尔的广告似乎几乎没有产生影响。事实上，正如罗德里格斯所解释的，萨拉扎尔的转变似乎为他的竞选带来了全国捐助者的募款激增，这些捐助者认为这种失常是该席位可能易手的迹象。不久之后，他们的预感得到了验证：政治预测机构将该席位从“可能共和党”调整为“倾向共和党”，而其他民调机构甚至直接将其称为摇摆席位。
Perhaps because of this, Salazar’s ad seemed to barely make a dent. In fact, as Rodriguez explained, Salazar’s turnabout had seemed to spark a fund-raising windfall for his campaign from national donors, who saw the dysfunction as a sign that the seat was potentially flippable. Shortly after, their premonitions were borne out: political forecasters shifted the seat from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” whereas other pollsters even went as far as to call it a toss-up.
我们穿过第八街（Calle Ocho），游客们在多米诺公园（Domino Park）周围闲逛，端详着出售公鸡T恤和古巴国旗冰箱贴的纪念品商店，随后我们向北走了几个街区，来到一个由简朴的低矮公寓楼组成的社区。距离选举只剩一个多月的时间，罗德里格斯的竞选团队正在不遗余力地争取没有党派 affiliation（N.P.A.，他的工作人员这样称呼他们）的选民，他们占该选区选民的百分之三十，占佛罗里达州注册选民的百分之二十四以上。
We crossed Calle Ocho, where tourists milled around Domino Park and perused souvenir shops selling rooster T-shirts and Cuban-flag magnets, before eventually making our way a few blocks north, to a neighborhood of modest, low-slung apartment buildings. With a little more than a month to go, Rodriguez’s campaign was relentlessly targeting voters with no party affiliation (N.P.A.s, as his staffers called them), who make up thirty per cent of the district and more than twenty-four per cent of Florida’s registered voters.
拉票人员情绪高涨：他们告诉我，与该选区那些更富裕的社区（他们在那里的走访常常只得到沉默和Ring门铃摄像头的回应）不同，小哈瓦那（Little Havana）的人们仍然会开门，而且往往很高兴看到罗德里格斯出现在他们的门前。
The canvassers were in high spirits: in contrast to the district’s more affluent neighborhoods, where they were often met with silence and Ring cameras, they told me that people in Little Havana still opened their doors, and, more often than not, they were excited to see Rodriguez at their doorstep.
“罗德里格斯基本上是迈阿密某一代人的家喻户晓的名字，”专注于拉美裔选民情绪的研究员、在迈阿密长大的卡洛斯·奥迪奥告诉我。“我记得小时候他在电视上出现。”当我问罗德里格斯是否觉得自己又回到了本地新闻的报道岗位时，他笑了，点了点头。“同样的技能，和人交谈。”一名竞选志愿者用iPad拍摄时，罗德里格斯用他那悦耳的主持人嗓音向居民和路人自我介绍，询问他们的近况。
“Rodriguez is essentially a household name for Miamians of a certain age,” Carlos Odio, a researcher focussing on Latino voter sentiment who grew up in Miami, told me. “I remember him being on television as a kid.”When I asked Rodriguez if it felt like he was back on the local-news beat, he smiled and nodded. “Same skill, talking to people.”As a campaign volunteer filmed with an iPad, Rodriguez introduced himself in his mellifluous anchorman’s voice to residents and passersby, asking how they were doing.
“”他说。（“事情很艰难，对吧？”）菲德莉亚是一位六十多岁的女性，七年前从古巴来到美国，她提到自己在岛上的家庭生活有多么艰难，但并未批评特朗普政府或萨拉扎尔。“这个国家对我来说是一种祝福，”她说。在罗德里格斯的推销中，一位戴着礼帽和墨镜的老年男子举起双手，仿佛这与他无关：他只是个居民。
“” he said. (“Things are hard, right?”) Fidelia, a woman in her sixties who had arrived in the U.S. from Cuba seven years ago, mentioned how difficult life was for her family back on the island but wasn’t critical of the Trump Administration, or of Salazar. “This country has been a blessing for me,” she said. At Rodriguez’s pitch, one older man in a fedora and sunglasses held up his hands as if it had nothing to do with him: he was only a resident.
另一位古巴女性则更直率。“我不喜欢她，”当我问到萨拉扎尔时，她说。“我觉得她不够真诚。”随着南佛罗里达的天气越来越热，我们经过街对面的一对耶和华见证人。“我们遇到了一些竞争对手，”罗德里格斯低声说道。当罗德里格斯接近梅尔巴时——她是一位正在遛狗的中年尼加拉瓜女性——她告诉他，她曾在八十年代带着儿子游过南部边境，但她自豪地宣布自己是共和党人，主要是因为她的基督教价值观。
Another Cuban woman was more forthcoming. “I don’t like her,” she said when I asked about Salazar. “I don’t think she’s sincere.”As the South Florida heat intensified, we passed a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the street. “We got some competition,” Rodriguez murmured. When Rodriguez approached Melba, a middle-aged Nicaraguan woman walking her dog, she told him that she had swum over the southern border with her son in the eighties but proudly declared herself a Republican, mainly owing to her Christian values.
她曾投给特朗普，但对国家现状并不满意。“他所做的事情，或者他所做的事情，这很令人悲伤，”她说，还提到了伊朗战争和油价。她喜欢民主党，但被“性别议题”所反感，并补充说她年纪太大，无法改变自己的信念。“在这点上我和你想法一致，”罗德里格斯回复。在他离开后，我问梅尔巴是否知道自己会投给谁，她说她得好好想想。
She had voted for Trump but wasn’t happy with the state of the country. “The things that he’s doing, or the things that is doing, that’s sad,” she said, also mentioning the Iran war and gas prices. She liked the Democrats but was turned off by the “gender stuff,” adding that she was too old to change her beliefs. “I’m with you on that,” Rodriguez replied. After he moved on, I asked if Melba knew who she’d be voting for, and she said that she’d have to think hard about it.
第二十七选区被称为美洲的全民议员席位，罗德里格斯和萨拉查之间的对决也日益带有国际维度。在那天早上的拉票班次中，罗德里格斯和几名竞选志愿者走过一座猪湾事件纪念碑，该小组成员中的一人沉思着说，特朗普和国务卿马可·鲁比奥（出生于第二十七选区）似乎在密谋重演当年的行动。这种想法并非牵强附会。
The Twenty-seventh District has been referred to as the at-large seat of the Americas, and, increasingly, the matchup between Rodriguez and Salazar has taken on an international dimension. During that morning’s canvassing shift, Rodriguez and several campaign volunteers walked by a monument to the Bay of Pigs invasion, and a member of the group mused that Trump and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio (a native of the Twenty-seventh), seemed to be plotting a repeat of the operation. The notion isn’t far-fetched.
最近，一份报道披露，今年6月，一群富有的古巴裔美国人在该选区的一处豪宅内会面，地点就在小哈瓦那以南仅几英里处，旨在谋划古巴后共产主义时期的未来。与此同时，鲁比奥已公开讨论直接干预，并威胁称，如果古巴政权不屈服于美国的要求，将“付出沉重代价吸取教训”。
Recently, a report revealed that, in June, a group of wealthy Cuban Americans met at a mansion in the district, just a few miles south of Little Havana, to plot Cuba’s post-Communist future. Meanwhile, Rubio has openly discussed direct intervention, threatening that the Cuban regime would “learn the lesson the hard way” if it didn’t capitulate to American demands.
当前政府对岛屿石油运输实施的严厉制裁和封锁，使特朗普在迈阿密古巴人中人气上升。一些与白宫结盟的拉美右翼政治家也背书了萨拉扎尔，包括获得诺贝尔和平奖的流亡委内瑞拉政治家玛丽亚·科里娜·马查多，以及哥伦比亚总统阿贝拉尔多·德拉·埃斯普里亚。但在本次选举中，两名候选人都试图声称自己是反共的代表人物。
The current Administration’s crushing sanctions and blockade on oil shipments to the island have made Trump popular among Miami Cubans. And some right-wing politicians in Latin America allied with the White House have endorsed Salazar, including María Corina Machado, the exiled Venezuelan politician who won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Colombian President, Abelardo de la Espriella. But, in this election, both candidates have attempted to claim the mantle of anti-communism.
罗德里格斯除了报道迈阿密的重大新闻，如马里埃尔船运和安德鲁飓风，还曾在委内瑞拉、尼加拉瓜和古巴等共产主义政权内部进行报道，甚至曾采访过菲德尔·卡斯特罗。他最近在西班牙语社交媒体帖子中批评萨拉扎尔，原因是特朗普政府与委内瑞拉社会主义政府的合作。（他也不赞同佐兰·曼达尼关于政府所有便利店的计划。）
Rodriguez, in addition to covering Miami’s biggest stories, such as the Mariel boatlift and Hurricane Andrew, had also reported from inside Communist regimes such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, once even interviewing Fidel Castro, and recently attacked Salazar in a Spanish-language social-media post over the Trump Administration’s partnership with the socialist government in Venezuela. (He isn’t a fan of Zohran Mamdani’s plan for government-owned bodegas, either.) In a reflection of the race’s tricky political balancing act between long-term and more recent exiles, Rodriguez said that he still has family in Cuba and believes that the Administration’s economic strangulation of the island is hurting citizens more than the government.
在反映这场竞争中长期流亡者与较新流亡者之间微妙政治平衡的言论中，罗德里格斯表示，他仍有家人在古巴，并认为政府对岛屿的经济勒压正在伤害平民多于政府。“我认为人们已经意识到，特朗普对古巴的政策不是为了恢复民主——而是为了让自己致富，”罗德里格斯告诉我。针对德拉·埃斯普里亚和马查多对萨拉扎尔的背书，他说他更关注在迈阿密努力维持生计的家庭。
“I think people have opened their eyes that Trump’s policy toward Cuba is not about restoring democracy—it’s about enriching himself,” Rodriguez told me. In response to de la Espriella’s and Machado’s endorsements of Salazar, he said that he was more focussed on families struggling to make ends meet in Miami.
毕竟，这场竞选需要的不仅仅是小哈瓦那。尽管罗德里格斯的竞选活动已经积聚了势头，并得到了与推动前共和党籍民主党前国会议员戴维·乔利竞选州长以及民主党籍州议员安吉·尼克松竞选参议员相同的反特朗普情绪的助推，但共和党人依然对该选区保持着牢固的控制，并且在全州的选民登记方面明显领先于民主党人。
After all, the campaign would need more than Little Havana. Though Rodriguez’s campaign has gained momentum, fuelled by the same anti-Trump resentment that has powered the Republican-turned-Democrat former congressman David Jolly’s run for governor and the Democratic state legislator Angie Nixon’s Senate campaign, Republicans maintain a strong grip on the district and have been significantly outpacing Democrats in voter registration throughout the state.
自2020年以来，全国民主党人及其盟友在资金上几乎完全放弃了佛罗里达州。佛罗里达州民主党拉美裔核心小组的共同财务主席苏珊·惠特曼-赫尔夫戈特无论如何都被激发并参与了进来。在2024年总统大选之后，她协助创立了一个名为“西迈阿密民主党人”的选民登记组织，重新下定决心让佛罗里达州再次成为摇摆州。她对我说：“你需要争取无党派选民。这并非易事，但可以做到。”
Since 2020, national Democrats and their allies have all but abandoned Florida financially. Susan Whitman-Helfgot, the co-finance chair of Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, was motivated to get involved anyway. She helped found the West Miami Dems, a voter-registration group, after the 2024 Presidential election, newly determined to make Florida a swing state again. “You need to pull in the no-party voters. It’s not an easy sale, but it can be made,” she told me.
她解释说，今年佛罗里达州选举中选民参与的重要性尤为突出，因为最近共和党主导的州选举法修改将剥夺不参与投票者的权利，同时还伴随着一股旨在剥夺拉美裔选民投票权的虚假信息浪潮。一些拉美裔告诉她，他们认为自己作为独立人士不允许参加国会选举投票。还有人提到，他们在教堂里听说自己今年根本不能投票。
The stakes for voter engagement are particularly high for this year’s elections in Florida, she explained, in the face of recent Republican-led changes to state election laws that will de- voters who do not participate, as well as a swell of disinformation aimed at disenfranchising Latino voters. Some Latinos told her that they thought they weren’t allowed to vote in congressional elections as independents. Others mentioned hearing at church that they simply couldn’t vote this year.
她还迅速指出，虽然拉美裔选民并非铁板一块，但特朗普政府的移民打压行动正日益成为受影响者的政治觉醒契机。“当事情变得个人化时，情况就会改变，”她说。“当你是委内瑞拉人，并且你的家庭成员被驱逐出境时，这就完全是另一回事了。”
She was also quick to point out that, although Latino voters were not a monolith, the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown had increasingly become a political wake-up call for those affected by it. “It changes when it’s personal,” she said. “When you’re Venezuelan, and you’ve had a family member thrown out, it’s a whole different ballgame.”
这种情感与佛罗里达国际大学拉美公众舆论论坛于2025年对佛罗里达州大多数长期委内瑞拉移民进行的一项民调相呼应。该民调发现，35%的受访者有家人或亲密朋友受到临时保护状态（T.P.S.）终止的影响。在所有受访者中，曾投给特朗普票的五分之一现在对其选择感到后悔。至于特朗普本人，他似乎并不担心。在最初对萨拉查尔广告的问题不置可否之后，他在Truth Social上转发了十多篇攻击她的帖子：“她只不过是一个背叛者，”一篇帖子写道。
That sentiment dovetailed with a 2025 poll of mostly long-term Venezuelan immigrants in Florida by Florida International University’s Latino Public Opinion Forum, which found that thirty-five per cent of respondents had family or a close friend affected by the termination of T.P.S. Of all the poll’s participants, a fifth of those who had voted for Trump now regretted it. Trump, for his part, did not seem concerned. After initially shrugging off questions about Salazar’s ad, he reposted more than a dozen posts attacking her on Truth Social: “She is nothing but a back stabber,” one post read. “I’m glad Latino support hasn’t wavered.”Another read, “So we need a NEW Republican to Replace Salazar.”In the days after the ad, Salazar appeared on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” saying that she spoke with Trump and had a “fantastic conversation” with him, adding that he was “courteous” and “very receptive.”It was unclear whether her ad was a reaction to any new voter data, but, since its release, she had been keeping a relatively low profile in Miami.
“我很高兴拉美裔的支持没有动摇。”另一则帖子写道：“所以我们需要一位新的共和党人来取代萨拉查尔。”广告播出后的几天里，萨拉查尔出现在CBS新闻的《面对国家》节目中，表示她曾与特朗普交谈，并进行了一次“非常美妙”的对话，补充说他“很有礼貌”且“非常愿意倾听”。目前尚不清楚她的广告是否是对任何新选民数据的反应，但自广告发布以来，她在迈阿密一直保持相对低调。
Shortly after meeting with Rodriguez, I reached out to Salazar’s spokesperson for an interview, even visiting her office on Eighth Street, where a Cuban flag emblazoned with the word “Libertad” hung on the wall, but my repeated requests were unanswered. Then, a few days later, I received a tip that the congresswoman would appear at a Mass at Our Lady of Lebanon, a Maronite Catholic church back in Little Havana that serves a diverse community of Lebanese and of Latino descent. At the conclusion of an English-language service interspersed with hymns in Arabic, the priest introduced Salazar, who stood up in the front row, smiling and waving. She walked with him into an adjoining banquet hall, where she shook hands and posed for pictures. As I approached Salazar, a young woman stepped in front of me and began addressing her as a bearded man beside me filmed the exchange.
在与罗德里格斯会面后不久，我联系了萨拉查的新闻发言人请求进行采访，甚至造访了她在第八街的办公室，那里墙上挂着一面印有“自由”一词的古巴国旗，但我多次请求均未得到回应。随后几天后，我接到一条线索，称这位女众议员将出席位于小哈瓦那黎巴嫩圣母堂的一场弥撒，这是一座马龙派天主教堂，服务于黎巴嫩裔和拉丁裔等多元社区。
“You were talking about enforcement,” the woman said.
在一场穿插着阿拉伯语赞美诗的英语礼拜结束时，牧师介绍了萨拉查，她站在前排微笑着向大家挥手。她和牧师一起走进一间相邻的宴会厅，在那里与人握手并合影留念。当我走近萨拉查时，一名年轻女子走到我面前，开始与她交谈，而我身旁的一名大胡子男子则在拍摄这一过程。
“I wanted to interrupt. My name is Arianne Betancourt. My father was in Alligator Alcatraz. Myself and several of the people here went to your office several times. Your staff told us you were in full support of this Administration and its policies.”
“你当时在谈论执法，”这名女子说。“我想打断一下。我叫阿里安娜·贝坦库尔特。我父亲曾在‘短吻鳄恶魔岛’。我和这里的几个人曾多次去过你的办公室。你的幕僚告诉我们，你完全支持本届政府及其政策。”
Salazar nodded in response, a tight smile across her face as a small crowd formed around us. “Wait a minute, who did you talk to?” she said, glancing over her shoulder as two staffers approached. She began to introduce Reidel Nabut, her deputy district director. “This is, uh . . .”“Yes, that’s who I spoke to,” Betancourt said. “But, you know, it’s been six months since that happened. And you really let the community down.”After some back and forth, with Salazar’s spokesperson looking on uneasily, the congresswoman turned to the priest. “Are they part of this community?” she asked him, indicating Betancourt and the man who was filming. “No,” he said.
萨拉查点头回应，脸上带着勉强的微笑，周围聚集了一小群人。“等一下，你和谁谈过？”她说着，瞥了一眼身后走来的两名幕僚。她开始介绍雷德尔·纳布特，即她的副地区主任。“这是，呃……”“是的，这就是和我交谈的人，”贝坦库尔特说。“但是，你知道，距离那件事已经过去六个月了。而你真的让社区失望了。”在一番言语交锋后，萨拉查的发言人在一旁不安地看着，这位女众议员转向牧师。“他们是这个社区的人吗？”她指着贝坦库尔特和拍摄的男子问牧师。“不是，”牧师说。
“We are part of the community, and I’m one of your constituents,” Betancourt replied. Salazar smiled and nodded, pointing at the man who was filming, an activist named Thomas Kennedy. “, that’s why you’re taping.”
“我们是社区的一部分，我是你的选民，”贝坦库尔回答道。萨拉扎微笑着点了点头，指着正在拍摄的那名男子、一位名叫托马斯·肯尼迪的活动人士说：“……这就是你在录像的原因。”
Eventually, the priest and a few parishioners intervened, and Betancourt left. Salazar’s team told me that she wouldn’t be taking questions. I spoke briefly to the priest, Manuel Rahmeh, a native of Lebanon, who told me that the majority of his church congregants are immigrants. “They should be treated in a different way.”A few days later, I met Betancourt for coffee in North Miami. The video of her exchange with Salazar had been posted online and had gone viral, so much so that Salazar had been forced to issue a statement, telling a local news station she believed that the encounter was politically motivated and that Betancourt had a “clear agenda.”Betancourt, who is half Cuban but also has Honduran and Salvadoran roots, told me that before her father was detained she wasn’t a political person at all—she had even voted for Salazar. She had worked as a tour guide in Little Havana and other parts of Florida before quitting her job to focus full time on getting her father released from detention and had been among the first to document human-rights abuses at the facility. Her father’s case was complicated; he had a criminal record, but she told me he had been following immigration protocol.
最终，神父和几位教区居民进行了干预，贝坦库尔离开了。萨拉扎的团队告诉我，她不会接受提问。我简短地采访了神父曼努埃尔·拉梅，他是一位黎巴嫩人，他告诉我，他教堂里的绝大多数教众都是移民。“他们应该受到不同的对待。”几天后，我和贝坦库尔在北迈阿密的一家咖啡馆见了面。她与萨拉扎交谈的视频被发布到网上后迅速走红，以至于萨拉扎被迫发表了一份声明，对当地一家新闻台称，她认为这次偶遇是出于政治动机，并且贝坦库尔有着“明确的议程”。
贝坦库尔有一半古巴血统，同时也有洪都拉斯和萨尔瓦多血统，她告诉我，在父亲被拘留之前，她一点也不关心政治——她甚至还投票给过萨拉扎。她曾在小哈瓦那和佛罗里达州的其他地方担任导游，后来辞去了工作，全职投入到争取父亲获释的行动中，并且是最早记录该设施侵犯人权行为的人之一。她父亲的情况很复杂；他有犯罪记录，但她告诉我，他一直遵循着移民程序。
He was detained at a routine check-in at ’s Miramar field office. She had sat outside in her car all day waiting for him and finally received a call at 9 with his voice on the line telling her that he was in Alligator Alcatraz, shackled to a bed.
他在移民局米拉马尔实地办事处的一次例行报到中被拘留。她一整天都坐在外面的车里等他，直到晚上9点才终于接到一个电话，电话那头传来她父亲的声音，告诉她他在“短吻鳄恶魔岛”，被戴着脚镣铐在床上。
When she tried to get help from Salazar’s office, she said members of the staff told her that there was nothing they could do and that the congresswoman supported immigration enforcement. Eventually, with help from the Community Justice Project, Betancourt was able to get her father out. The congresswoman’s office disputed her account, saying that her team had met with Betancourt and claimed they had offered to help with her father’s case. A spokesperson for the congresswoman also said that her office has resolved many immigration-related cases for its constituents.
当她试图从萨拉查的办公室寻求帮助时，她说工作人员告诉她，他们无能为力，且这位女议员支持移民执法。最终，在社区司法项目的帮助下，贝坦库尔得以让她的父亲获释。这位女议员的办公室对她的说法提出了异议，称其团队曾与贝坦库尔会面，并表示他们曾主动提出协助处理其父亲的案件。这位女议员的一名发言人还表示，她的办公室已经为选民解决了许多与移民相关的案件。
Betancourt now works for an immigrant-rights group called the Workers Circle, and she said that she’d confronted Salazar on behalf of nearly eight hundred families with loved ones detained in other South Florida facilities, such as Krome. Her phone was constantly pinging throughout our conversation, and at one point she received a call from a detention center. She showed me a WhatsApp group for Cubans who had been deported to Africa.
贝坦库尔现在为一家名为“工人环”的移民权利组织工作，她说，她曾代表近八百个家庭与萨拉查对质，这些家庭的亲人被关押在克罗姆等其他南佛罗里达州的羁押设施中。在我们的交谈过程中，她的手机不时发出提示音，一度还接到了一家羁押中心的电话。她向我展示了一个针对被遣返至非洲的古巴人的WhatsApp群聊。
Later, Betancourt told me that advocating on her father’s and other detainees’ behalf had made her a target of far-right Cuban American influencers. It had also caused tension in her family. She’d been renting from her father’s sister, a Trump supporter, who she said called her a communist and kicked her out after seeing her attend a vigil. But she added that, over the past couple of months, she had felt a shift in her critics. “Some of the people who were against the work I was doing are now, like, ‘You know what, maybe you were right.’ ” It echoed what I’d heard from others in the city. Although no one I spoke to in the Twenty-seventh District predicted a stampede of Republicans running to vote for Rodriguez, one longtime local politician told me that even his most vociferous friends had become quieter, steering their conversations away from politics. A lawyer I met related the story of a Republican colleague who had remained a Trump supporter until a few weeks ago, appalled by the lack of due process in immigration court. She asked her colleague if she planned to vote for Salazar.
随后，贝坦库尔告诉我，为她父亲和其他被扣押人员发声，使她成了极右翼古巴裔美国网红的目标。这也给她的家庭带来了紧张气氛。她曾租住她父亲姐姐的房子，对方是一名特朗普支持者。据她称，对方在看到她参加一场守夜活动后，骂她是共产党人并将她赶了出去。但她补充说，在过去的几个月里，她感觉到批评她的人态度发生了转变。
“一些原本反对我所做工作的人现在觉得，‘你知道吗，也许你是对的。’”这呼应了我从该市其他人那里听到的说法。尽管我在第二十七国会选区交谈过的所有人中，没有一个人预测共和党人会蜂拥投票给罗德里格斯，但一位资深的当地政客告诉我，即使是他那些最喧嚣的朋友也变得安静了，把他们的谈话引开政治。我遇到的一名律师讲述了一位共和党同事的故事，这位同事直到几周前还是特朗普的支持者，但她对移民法庭缺乏正当程序感到震惊。她问这位同事是否打算投票给萨拉查。“她告诉我说她可能会待在家里，”她说。
“She told me she would probably stay home,” she said.