MIAMI — Detectives with the Florida International University Police Department were working with local, state, and federal law enforcement to investigate a Miami-Dade County Republican Party’s WhatsApp group.

FIU President Jeanette M. Nuñez announced the investigation on Thursday after the Floridian Press reported “Miami GOP Secretary’s Group Chat Pushes Antisemitism, ‘Killing [N-word]’” on Wednesday about alleged posts from last year, and The Miami Herald and New York Times followed on Thursday.

“FIU does not and will not tolerate violence, hate, discrimination, harassment, racism or antisemitism,” Nuñez wrote in a statement. “This is not who we are. This is not what FIU stands for.”

Under Florida law, it is a felony to post threats to kill or cause serious bodily injury to another person. The alleged posts by activists on the chat’s leak included screenshots of a “Total [N-word] Death!” message and other detailed descriptions of racist violence on Sept. 28 that included crucifying and beheading.

Nuñez mentioned harassment. The Floridian reported the messages followed a discussion about a student who had “left the FIU College Republicans after being subjected to racial slurs.” The leak also included a trail of antisemitic, misogynistic, and homophobic references.

The Republican Party of Florida announced on Thursday morning that there was an ongoing “internal review” after the “repugnant comments made by a few” on the WhatsApp group.

“This is disgusting and cannot be tolerated,” Sen. Rick Scott wrote in a statement. “I’m glad that RPOF is launching an investigation and expect anyone who engaged in this horrible behavior to be held accountable. Racists and antisemites are not welcome in the Republican Party.”

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar released a statement demanding the resignations of the authors of the posts from any party positions.

“If you traffic in hatred, you cannot represent our movement. Not in our party. Not in our community. Not ever,” Salazar wrote.

Kevin J. Cooper, the chairman of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County, announced that the local board had commenced removal proceedings against Abel Alexander Carvajal, the secretary who allegedly started the “Uber Retards Yapping Inc.” chat on WhatsApp.

“The majority of our Party’s Board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation,” Cooper wrote in a statement that Florida Rep. Juan C. Porras, an FIU grad and the board’s state committeeman, shared on X.

Florida Sens. Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia, and Ana Maria Rodriguez also released a statement calling for Carvajal’s resignation and vowed to “hold them accountable.”

According to Carvajal’s biography on the board’s page, he identified as a Florida International University College of Law student and a Turning Point USA activist who grew up in Hialeah.

“Abel played a key role in flipping Miami-Dade red for the first time in 20 years in 2022 and has supported numerous candidates across the county,” the bio reads, adding that he has “recruited his friends, family, and activists” to help elect Republicans.

Last year, a Politico investigation uncovered a group of young Republicans who had used racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and sexist language in thousands of messages on Telegram. Politico reported some users had written about “raping their enemies and driving them to suicide.”

The scandal prompted the deactivation of the Kansas Young Republicans group, and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach terminated William Hendrix, the group’s vice chair, as a communications specialist in his office, The Kansas Reflector reported.

“When we started our reporting, started making the calls after laying out some of these messages in our drafts, two preemptively were fired from their jobs or had a job offer rescinded,” Politico’s Emily Ngo told PBS after the report. “And, pretty soon after we published, we saw that others lost their jobs too.”

This is a developing story. Local 10 News has not independently verified the group’s leak and is awaiting answers to requests for comment and information.

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