A Texas woman who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 now says through tears that she will “never vote for that man again.”
In an emotional interview, Jessica Vuittonet, a Hispanic coffee shop owner in San Benito, ten miles north of the southern border, tells CBS News she did not believe Trump’s sweeping migrant crackdown would impact her own family and other innocent immigrants.
“I know he was going to start deporting people,” she said. “But not innocent people—not hardworking people.”
Vuittonet says her brother is among those arrested by Trump’s immigration goons. She says she voted for Trump for religious reasons, but now realizes Trump’s policies are “heartbreaking.”
“It’s hardworking men that are being detained by ICE, not criminals,” she said. “That are up in the roofs, that are doing somebody’s driveway, that are cutting somebody’s grass, that are literally having a work truck to go work. Where are the criminals you said you were going to arrest? Yes, there’s a few that you’ve done, but the majority have been hardworking people.”
She continued, “Hardworking women. I just want to tear up—women that I’ve seen with their children, walking every day to school. Where’s your mom? Kids staying behind—broken families, it is just heartbreaking.”
Trump’s violent crackdown, which has reportedly led to around 980,000 people being deported, most of whom have no criminal record, has sparked regret among many Trump voters who wanted to see criminals removed from the country—not innocent families violently split apart.
Benny Melendez, who has installed fences on construction sites he manages to protect his workers from ICE, says he also regrets voting for Trump—just as he regretted voting for Biden in 2020.
Melendez tells CBS News that so many arrests in his Texas community have made it hard to find workers, and building a house can take twice as long because of a lack of manpower. According to TRAC, Texas, a state that has voted for Trump in all three of his presidential elections, has more immigration detentions than any other state.
Trump’s approval rating has fallen to a record low of 32 percent, according to CNN, just weeks ahead of the midterms that are expected to be a bloodbath for Republicans, who are at serious risk of losing their majorities in both the House and Senate.
The economy has proven to be the most stubborn issue for most Americans, with two-thirds of voters, and one-third of Republicans, saying the president has made economic conditions worse.
While polling has suggested that immigration is unlikely to be a definitional issue ahead of November’s elections, Michigan State University political scientist Matthew Grossman told The Guardian that Trump’s deportation policies were part of a general feeling of the president having “gone too far,” a sentiment also seen in terms of the Iran war and tariffs.
However, the issue hasn’t fazed White House border czar Tom Homan: “My job as a border czar is to keep that border secure and enforce immigration law,” he told CBS News earlier this month. “I particularly don’t care about midterms.”
