Latino delegates differ over how GOP should approach immigration

Published 6:30 pm Tuesday, July 19, 2016

CLEVELAND – Artemio Muniz and Mark Gonzales both winced a bit Monday when the mothers of an Arizona police officer and two California men killed by people living illegally in the Untied States were among featured speakers on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.

The deaths were tragic, and crimes committed by those without legal status are a serious part of the immigration debate, Muniz said outside of the Texas delegation’s breakfast Tuesday morning.

But clearly not all commit murder, he said, and the implication that Hispanic immigrants are a threat is hardly a way to feel wanted by a party.

Or by a presidential candidate struggling to win over a rapidly growing group of voters.

“The insinuation is not really going to help,” said Muniz, a Texas delegate and chairman of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans.

Muniz and Gonzales represent a nuanced difference among Hispanic delegates on where the party should go from here.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that for all the controversy around Donald Trump’s comments on the campaign trail – including deporting all immigrants without legal status – the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is doing no worse with Hispanic and Latino voters than the party’s last nominee, Mitt Romney.

That’s of little comfort to Muniz. A poll by NBC News, the Wall Street Journal and Telemundo last week found Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with an overwhelming lead over Trump among Latino voters, 76 percent to 14 percent.

This four years after a Republican Party post-mortem of Romney’s 2012 loss to President Barack Obama found it had to find a way to draw Latino voters.

Muniz argues that the party should embrace giving immigrants a path to stay in the country, though perhaps not full citizenship. He said he’s made the argument to national Republican leaders, but they are caught in the swift current of the Trump movement.

Monday’s speeches did not make him optimistic that Trump will back off his tough-on-illegal immigration stance.

Others, including Gonzales, executive director of the Hispanic Action Network, say the GOP can win over Latino voters without changing positions but by emphasizing that Latinos should naturally embrace conservative social values, which include opposition to abortion rights.

It’s an argument that others appear to be embracing.

Kentucky Sen. Ralph Alvarado is set to speak at the convention Wednesday on opportunities that Republicans present to Latinos.

“Ultimately, it’s going to be about the American dream, the values of the Republican Party and Latinos, and how they align,” Alvarado said in an interview Tuesday, after rehearsing the speech.

“Really we’re people who believe in the dignity of work, of being self-sufficient. We believe in faith and God and traditional values,” he said.

When young Latinos graduate from school, he said, “They want a job. They don’t care about immigration. They want economic opportunity.”

Rick Figueroa, a delegate from Brenham, Texas, said his mother taught him as a child to “get your butt out of bed and go to work, pray, find a good woman and marry her.”

“I just summed up what the Republican Party is about,” he said.

While Democrats may play to Latino voters with promises of amnesty, many Republicans at the convention said they’re sympathetic of those who came to the United States illegally, too.

“The thing is, they broke the law,” said Alphonso Telles, a Texas delegate and chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party.

In an interview on the convention floor, Telles agreed that short of making promises about immigration, Republicans can emphasize traditional conservative arguments.

Hispanic women have lost ground during the Obama administration, he said, while men have not fared much better.

Gonzales also argued that Obama is an easy target to help Republicans win back Latino voters. He promised to grant Latinos a path to citizenship, and he hasn’t delivered.

To be sure, the Republican Congress was an obstacle for Obama. But, Gonzales said, “We’re tired of being appeased. … Trump, with his business experience and get-it-done attitude, can deliver economic opportunity.”

Other Latinos, including Helen Gonzalez, a Trump supporter from Arlington, Texas, back deporting people who immigrated illegally.

Gonzalez said her grandparents entered the United States legally. “They did it the right way,” she said.

Gonzalez is struggling. When her husband lost his job and her daughter got cancer, she was told that she did not qualify for Obamacare because they owned a house.

She was advised to sell the home to pay for her daughter’s care, she said.

Gonzalez said she resents people without legal status who qualify for government benefits.

Muniz said other Latinos may agree. But Clinton still holds a 62-point advantage.

The GOP could stick with a tough immigration stance, he said, “but we’re going to lose.”

Other Latino Republicans, including Figueroa, said they’re bothered by Trump’s comments.

“It muddies the waters,” he said, as the party tries to win over voters on other issues, such as the economy.

In the meantime, Figueroa said, Republicans or Democrats could use technology to solve the immigration issue, by supporting a program to track immigrant’s movements using cellphones.

But neither side wants to make it go away.

“Republicans want to use it to fire up the base. The Democrats want to use it to reach Latinos,” he said. “Nobody wants to give up one of their quivers.”

Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C. reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com