Benny Melendez voted for Donald Trump in 2024. Now he finds it difficult to run his small construction firm in South Texas. Federal immigration officers have detained his workers at job sites and pulled over his company trucks. Since the start of 2025, more than ten of his men have been deported. The disruption convinced Melendez to abandon the Republican party and back the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, state Representative James Talarico.
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Subscribe Sekarang →Melendez is not alone in his anger. One in five Hispanic business owners in Texas say they have lost an employee to deportation over the past year. According to a new survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council, seven in ten reported that new tariffs have harmed their operations. Talarico now holds a seven-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, among the business owners surveyed.
The poll reveals the vulnerability of Paxton in a state where Hispanic voters had previously swung toward the Republican ticket. Javier Palomarez, the president of the business council, stated that the deportations have created a debilitating atmosphere of fear. He noted that losing even a single worker destroys morale and cripples small firms that cannot find American citizens willing to perform hard labor in the intense Texas heat.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has doubled down on his hardline stance. He has publicly touted his support for strict state immigration measures and filed lawsuits to halt publicly funded legal defense for undocumented workers. His spokesperson, Madison Cercy, dismissed the shift, stating that Texas voters desire lower taxes and less regulation, and labeled Talarico's platform as too radical for the state.
The upcoming Senate race represents a major battleground. Recent polling shows Paxton and Talarico locked in a dead heat overall, but Talarico has secured a 32-point lead among Hispanic voters. This marks a stark reversal from 2024, when Donald Trump carried the Hispanic vote in Texas by ten points and won historically Democratic strongholds along the Mexican border.
In the border communities, residents say the federal crackdown has gone too far. Local anxiety intensified after high-profile detentions, including a Catholic nun stopped by federal agents in McAllen. Representative Monica de la Cruz, a Republican from the Rio Grande Valley, criticized the enforcement priorities on social media, stating that federal actions should target violent criminals rather than peaceful community members.