Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) set off a firestorm of controversy after stating that Americans cannot defend the U.S. unless they have help from illegal aliens. The Republican lawmaker’s comments came as she sided with Democrats to push her “Dignidad” amnesty for 15 million illegal migrants currently residing in the United States.
“Let them stay … Let them continue contributing to the number one economy in the world, so we can continue being the number one military in the world. [If] we don’t have the economy, we don’t have the guns, and we cannot defend ourselves,” Salazar went on to say.
However, a report from Breitbart pointed out that little evidence exists to support the notion that 15 million illegal aliens in the country, or the 40 million legalized migrants in the U.S., have made positive contributions to national security.
The inconvenient truth is that migrant renters, workers, and consumers are being used as pawns to inflate the consumer economy, while investors send high-tech and manufacturing industries, along with software resources and critical databases overseas to China and India. The publication noted that Salazar’s amnesty bill would only speed up that process by increasing the legalized inflow of low-wage workers.
According to the report, the bill being touted by the Florida Republican came after she previously admitted that part of the legislation’s purpose is to provide business groups with “cheap labor,” with the groups in question including her Sunshine State donors. Salazar’s comments were made during a press conference on Capitol Hill in April 2026.
“When people tell me that I am trying to help big business to have cheap labor, I’m going to answer them: It’s not [just] big business, it’s not only agricultural or construction or hospitality or health care or manufacturing — it’s more,” she said at the time. And she apparently wasn’t done there, going on to discuss others who would benefit from her amnesty bill.
“Who else? The farmers, people in the dairy business. We all like milk, right? Well, there are 150,000 jobs available in agriculture right now … Manufacturers! I don’t know anyone in the manufacturing world, but I do know that the National Association of Manufacturers decided to do a public press conference to support [the] Dignidad [bill] … It’s agricultural, construction, hospitality [sectors] …” she continued.
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“We’re talking about those millions and millions of illegals, undocumented people who belong to my community. Probably 80 percent of the undocumented belong to the Hispanics, the largest and fastest-growing minority in the country. So why don’t we give them dignity? Let them stay — those who do not have a criminal record,” Salazar stated on July 20.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance both have said that the country’s economy should place emphasis on efficiency rather than migration. “If you want to help a normal person, don’t provide a corporation nine low-wage migrants to compete against them when they’re bargaining for wages,” Vance said earlier in the month.
“Man, we ran the experiment of offshoring all of our industrial jobs, of becoming a services-and-finance economy, and allowing Wall Street to come in and buy every asset of modern life and turn it into an investable — line goes up! — asset, and what has that done? It’s created a generation of kids who are attracted to socialism,” the vice president continued, adding, “You actually give [Americans] more power when you have a more restricted immigration policy.”
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video