Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar signs books, dodges questions, and sells “Dignity”

Only in Miami does a sitting member of Congress host a book signing about dignity while refusing to take a single question from the very people whose dignity she’s been chipping away at in Washington.
That’s exactly what happened the other night in Coral Gables, where Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar held a cozy, closed-door event to promote her new $29.99 book, Dignity Not Citizenship. A short presentation, a few pleasantries, some staged applause — and boom, that was it. No Q&A. No accountability. No conversation with the community she claims to represent.
Ladra has seen more transparency at an HOA meeting.
But it makes sense. Answering questions would mean explaining the truth behind her so-called Dignity Act, the immigration bill she’s been parading around Washington like it’s a gift to immigrants. Spoiler alert: It’s not. It’s a caste system — a legislative maze that keeps millions of immigrants forever in limbo, permanently denied citizenship, locked into a “half-person” legal status. A Dignity Track, a Redemption Track, a Just-Be-Grateful-You’re-Here Track. Pick your caste. None come with equality.
It’s an ugly structure with a pretty name, the kind of political Photoshop that tries to hide discrimination under soft lighting and a Spanish-speaking spokesperson. And the Latino community knows a scam when it sees one. We’ve lived through enough of them.
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar’s ‘Dignity Act’ is about zero dignity and all a big act
That’s why the closed-door policy at the book-signing was such open hypocrisy. If you thought anybody could walk in to the Coral Gables museum — a public venue that gets money from a number of sources, including the city of Coral Gables — and ask her about it, think again. Activists Thomas Kennedy and Billy Corben were stopped at the entrance and not allowed inside. Kennedy had pre-registered and had taken Corben as his plus one.
Maybe the congresswoman didn’t want to be fact-checked in real time. Maybe she knew Corben was going to call the 150-page book “a thirst trap for the president,” to whom she dedicated it. Maybe she knew Corben was going to expose the fact that her plan is nothing original, just a revamped version of the same ol’ plans presented by Marco Rubio the Gang of Eight and even Barack Obama.
Gasp.
Or maybe she knows that the people who know her best — the ones who’ve watched her vote with the Trump-Miller anti-immigrant wing every single time — are the least likely to buy her book.
You know who did buy the book? Coral Gables Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who looks a little starstruck in the social media photos.
In her short little speech, Salazar blamed the White House for the mess at the border, as if she hasn’t voted to block bipartisan immigration reform, slash asylum protections, and keep Dreamers dangling like political piñatas.
Ladra would laugh if it weren’t so damaging to the thousands of families living in fear because Donald Trump ended TPS for Venezuelans and others — while María Elvira stayed silent.
Dignity, huh?
While the congresswoman was busy selling autographed copies of her book — which is really just a bespeckled narrative of her dead legislation — two Democrats running against each other to unseat her were outside talking to actual constituents.
Environmental entrepreneur Richard Lamondin, the son of immigrants, delivered blistering remarks calling out Salazar’s two-faced routine. Robin Peguero, a former federal prosecutor and fellow Democrat in the FL-27 race, also showed up to speak with voters and join protesters demanding accountability.
Read related: Richard Lamondin challenges Maria Elvira Salazar with ‘town hall’ in CD27
Along side them, community members held signs, chanted, and reminded anyone passing by that while María Elvira won’t hold a town hall, she will make time to sell books about compassion and fairness she hasn’t bothered to practice.
“Dignity isn’t a slogan and it’s not something you sell,” Lamondin said. “It’s how you treat people — especially when their lives, families, and futures are on the line. And on that test, she has completely failed this community,” he said about Salazar.
“You cannot preach dignity on a book tour while staying silent as Donald Trump ends Temporary Protected Status for thousands of families, including telling Venezuelans it is safe to go home while, in the same breath, calling Maduro a brutal narco-terrorist and deploying the US Navy,” Lamondin said. “Those two things cannot be true at the same time. You can’t have it both ways.
“You cannot talk about dignity while families with no criminal record live in daily fear of deportation,” he said. “The majority of people in ICE detention have no criminal record. These aren’t dangerous criminals. These are parents, workers, and caregivers being hunted like animals by our own government.
“That’s not dignity. That’s cruelty.”
Lamondin reminded the crowd that most people in ICE detention have no criminal record and that Salazar’s alignment with Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is what keeps families in fear, not any book tour and he laid out his own vision: certainty for Dreamers and TPS holders, modernizing visa processing, strengthening the border without cruelty, and a fair pathway to legal status rooted in actual dignity — not the trademarked kind.
Peguero was more blunt on his attack of the Congresswoman and her lack of accountability.
“We have not seen our congresswoman in a very long time, and, in fact, the first thing that she does when she actually comes out of hiding is to sell books to put money in her own pocket,” Peguero told a group of supporters or protesters or both.
“She got to collect her fat congressional paycheck, her gold-plated congressional health care while our government was shut down for 45 days because she refused to extend the ACA subsidies,” he said. “This district has the number one, uh, ACA enrollees in the country. People are going to see their healthcare double and triple their premiums.
“You want people to have actual dignity, not just a slogan you throw on a book that you sell for 20 bucks, again to enrich yourself,” Peguero said, giving the tome a $10 discount already. “What she wants is to continue to exploit our friends and our neighbors, who have been here for 30 years, who have paid their taxes, who have contributed to our economy, who have no criminal history and to say you can never become an American citizen.”
He’s not wrong. The congresswoman hasn’t done a real town hall in ages. She won’t stand in front of her constituents and explain her voting record, her silence on TPS, or her support for policies that divide immigrant families. But she’ll happily sit at a table and sign $30 hardcovers about how much she supposedly cares.
Ladra has seen grifters with more subtlety.
Read related: María Elvira Salazar strikes again, takes credit for money she voted against
The whole thing reveals what the community already knows: Salazar is more interested in the performance of dignity than the practice of it. Just like the dishonest self-promoting posts on the community allocations she voted against. The photo ops, the applause lines, the branding — all of it louder than the reality that she continues to vote with the extremists pushing the harshest immigration agenda in modern history.
Because the truth is simple: The Latino community is not half a person. We are not a caste. We are not political props. We are full citizens — with full rights — and we deserve representation that treats us that way.
And no book signing is going to paper over that.

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