Trump and the Latinos

Trump has called Latino immigrants criminals, rapists, murderers, and says he will deport them. However, a third of Hispanics support him.

By Luis Fierro Carrión

Twitter: @luis_fierro_eco

In June 2015, when Donald Trump first launched his presidential campaign, he attacked Latino immigrants. He stated that “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists."

At that time, Trump had not yet been charged with 91 felonies, had not yet received 34 criminal convictions, nor had he been found responsible for business fraud or rape.

Much of his three election campaigns have focused on attacking immigrants, and in particular Latino, Mexican, Salvadoran, Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants. There is a clear element of racism in his attacks, as he claims that these immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the United States and come from “shithole countries”, and laments that there are not more Scandinavian immigrants (Norwegians or Swedes).

In 2016, Trump claimed that he would build a wall along the entire border with Mexico, and that the Mexican government would pay for it, which, of course, never happened: a few more miles of wall were built in addition to the existing ones; and Mexico paid nothing.

Trump also said he would massively deport undocumented immigrants (which he largely did not do in his first administration); and has repeated the same "offer" in 2020 and 2024.

Despite all these racist attacks against Latinos and immigrants, Trump won 29% of the votes of Hispanics in 2016; in 2012, 27% of Latinos had voted for the Republican candidate (Mitt Romney). Historically, the highest percentage of votes obtained by a Republican presidential candidate was George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election (44%); it should be remembered that Bush's brother, Jeb, is married to a Mexican, and that George Jr. had been the governor of Texas, a state with a high Latino population (mainly Mexican American).

In 2020, Trump managed to increase his support among Latino voters, reaching 33% (despite which, he lost the election). When Biden was still a candidate this election cycle, Trump had reached even higher percentages of support (46% according to a Siena/New York Times poll), but after Kamala Harris replaced him, more recent polls show the Vice President in the lead (60-32% according to a recent The Economist/YouGov poll).

In the debate and subsequent rallies, Trump has been repeating the lie that Haitian immigrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio, are eating cats and dogs (something that has been denied by the governor of Ohio and the mayor of the city, both Republicans), and curiously he has said that he would deport them to Venezuela (perhaps due to mental confusion, and even though they are not undocumented).

Some immigrants of Cuban, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan origin have fallen into the trap of believing false claims that Kamala Harris and the Democrats are communists (in reality, the candidate and the party are center-left; and they strongly condemn the communist dictatorships of those three countries). Some Latinos are evangelical, Mormon and other predominantly conservative denominations, and they give weight to cultural issues such as abortion, gun rights, and LGBTI rights.

In any case, it is incomprehensible that a significant percentage of Latinos support a racist, xenophobic candidate who has said that he will deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The "Project 2025" document, Trump adviser Stephen Miller and the Republican candidates even speak of "denaturalizing" those who are already citizens and refer to the term "remigration", that is, the expulsion of people to their countries of origin (for racial or ethnic reasons).

This could result in the deportation of many of the voters' relatives and friends, or even the voters themselves.

Beyond immigration issues or racial or ethnic identity, Trump's economic proposals could lead to increased inflation and cause a recession (as Goldman Sachs, the Wharton School of Business, and a group of 16 Nobel Laureates in Economics have estimated); while Kamala Harris proposes to increase minimum wages; creating tax credits for families with children or for low-income workers; offering a subsidy of $25,000 to buy a first home; and $50,000 to start a new business. Objectively, real wages (adjusted for inflation), and the net worth of Latinos have improved substantially in the last 4 years.

Graphic taken from Vox, https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23331025/hispanic-voter-power-10-charts-midterms-2022