In Miami, stories of resilience in the face of persecution and exile are part of who we are.

Stories of rebuilding a life in a country that promises freedom and opportunity for those who’d experienced the loss of both and take nothing for granted.

It’s an experience shared by many of the Latin American and Caribbean diasporas that make up Miami — whether they came from Cuba (like my own family) or Haiti, Nicaragua or Venezuela. At our best, these collective experiences shape how we understand dignity, freedom, and fairness for ourselves and for those who come after.

That is why Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s vote last week to unlock up to $75 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement, including $140 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol (CBP) is a betrayal to many who share that experience.

She tells South Florida voters she is different, more compassionate, more pragmatic. But her votes tell a different story. While most Americans have been shocked by seeing deportation agents rampaging through our cities and killing American citizens, Salazar approved a measure that would give these agencies even more money with limited oversight or accountability for how it will be used.

While her constituents are frustrated by rising housing, healthcare, and food costs, this is how she is allocating our tax dollars. And this is on top of her vote last year to triple ICE funding.

Her vote paves the way for rapidly expanding detention and deportation operations at a moment when enforcement is escalating across the country, and Miami leads the nation in immigration arrests. Reports of corruption and abuse at the Everglades detention center should alarm everyone who believes in due process and democratic principles.

And this was not a routine vote. The measure passed without bipartisan support, by a razor-thin margin, with just a handful of votes making the difference. This wasn’t a policy decision — it was a moral one. She chose detention and deportation over her community and constituents.

She did this while touting the so-called Dignity Act.

But there is nothing dignified about a symbolic piece of legislation that asks working families to pay thousands of dollars for temporary status with no pathway to citizenship, forces millions to live in permanent uncertainty, and creates a bureaucratic underclass based on migration status. If we’ve learned anything from the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, it is that temporary protections can be taken away at any point.

It’s a lesson Salazar should have learned from her own advocacy for extending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Venezuelans. While she promotes “dignity” in front of the cameras, Salazar is expanding the very system responsible for detaining parents, separating families, and conducting mass deportations, bringing fear and economic uncertainty to a community built by immigrants, small businesses, and working families.

In Miami, people have a name for Salazar’s actions: la doble cara.

You cannot stand with immigrants and vote to strengthen the machinery that is harming them. You cannot honor our shared history of seeking and receiving refuge while denying it to others. You cannot speak about reform while using our tax dollars to fund policies that instill fear in communities, schools, workplaces, and churches.

For families across South Florida, this isn’t an abstract policy; it shows up in empty chairs at the dinner table, empty parking lots at church, and loved ones who don’t come home. Families are being separated. People have been detained for months. Our local economy is being decimated, and children are growing up with fear and instability.

South Florida deserves leaders who say what they mean and vote like it. Not officials who try to be on both sides at once.

No se puede estar con Dios y con el diablo al mismo tiempo.

Congresswoman Salazar should decide where she stands.

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Ana Sofía Peláez is the executive director of Miami Freedom Project, a nonprofit dedicated to civic education, organizing and advocacy. She resides in Florida’s 27th congressional District and is a constituent of Rep. Salazar.