Here & Now

How Important Is the Latino Vote in Wisconsin?

Frederica Freyberg:
All eyes are on Milwaukee as the seat of next July’s National Democratic Convention. But ahead of that, this July, a national convention with an eye toward policy and politics also chose Milwaukee. Some 25,000 people gathered late this week to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Last night, the convention hosted some of the Democrats running in the presidential primary. Here’s a sample of what was discussed at the Milwaukee town hall forum.

Julian Castro:
The question before us is whether we’re going to continue to be that country that expands opportunity to people no matter who they are, what they look like, how much money they have or don’t have, how long they’ve been in our country, what their last name is. Or are we going to go backward and become a nation where opportunity is only afforded to those who look a certain way.

Elizabeth Warren:
I’m also protecting our dreamers, but not just our dreamers. What does it mean to protect a dreamer if her mother is taken away, if her father is taken away, if an older sibling is taken away, if a younger sibling has missed the time cutoff? That’s not who we are.

Beto O’Rourke:
We don’t need to deport people or round them up. In fact, when immigrant communities fear local law enforcement, fear federal law enforcement, they’re less likely to report crimes, to testify in trials, to serve as witnesses. They’re no longer participating in the civic life of our communities and we are less safe.

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats running in the primary for president appeared in a Milwaukee town hall forum last night. The forum was sponsored by Univision and the League of United Latin American Citizens. The league is the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the country and is in the midst of its national convention in Milwaukee. So what did members of the league think of the candidates and the race for president more generally? We asked its former president, Hector Flores, who joins us now from Milwaukee and thanks very much for being here.

Hector Flores:
It’s an honor and a pleasure to be with you today.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do your members want to hear from any candidate who will receive an endorsement from your organization?

Hector Flores:
Well, because we’re a nonprofit, normally we don’t endorse candidates, but most certainly any of our membership can endorse candidates and absolutely the kind of work that we do in order not to, I guess, jeopardize our nonprofit status is we do voter education drives. We do voter registration and do get out the vote. But we do go listen to candidates and that’s why last night we had four of the viable candidates before, I guess, a capacity crowd at the convention center. And let me tell you, it was really interesting and very intense last night to listen to four great candidates, beginning with Julian Castro from San Antonio, the former mayor and secretary of HUD. And then of course we also had Bernie Sanders and a lot of young people whooping and hollering. It was just incredible. And then when Elizabeth Warren came onboard, they just kept on. The excitement, you know, the political excitement and atmosphere. And then the clean-up hitter was Beto O’Rourke, who’s from Texas just like Julian. It was dynamite to listen to all of these candidates expound on what they would do as soon as they got into office. And of course, our membership were excited they took the time and liberty to come and speak to us.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why did you bring your national convention to Milwaukee?

Hector Flores:
Normally it takes about four years to bid for the convention. And when I was the national president in 2006, I actually was instrumental in bringing it to Milwaukee because I wanted our base to expand in the Midwest. But also not only here in Wisconsin, but also in Illinois and Chicago in particular, because there’s two million Latinos of Mexican origin in the Chicago area. So I thought that we should bring it to where our potential membership is, but also to prepare them to get into elective office at all levels, from the school boards to the city councils to state representation to Congress and on and on and on. And in the time that I’ve lived, I’ve seen those changes occur because of the great work that not only LULAC has done, but a lot of our sister civil rights organizations.

Frederica Freyberg:
Did you invite all of the candidates, including President Trump?

Hector Flores:
Absolutely. President Trump was invited to attend our event but he chose to come and only speak to the well-heeled wealthy of this community tonight. But everybody got an invite. In fact, we just got a call today from sitting mayor de Blasio from New York that he wants to come tonight whether he can speak or not. SO we said get on that plane and come on down here. We want to listen to you too. But of course, yes, we have quite a few of the other candidates. There are like 22 or 23 right now. They’re all welcome to come and speak to our membership. As I mentioned earlier, as a nonprofit we cannot endorse but we sure can highlight some of these people.

Frederica Freyberg:
How does what many describe as a crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico shape how Latino voters, your members, feel going into the 2020 election?

Hector Flores:
Most Latinos are aghast at what our country has become because of the public policies of Donald Trump. I could never imagine in my life growing up in a border town that we would put in jail, in concentration camps. I know we call them detention centers but they’re as close to a concentration camp as we can get. When you take kids from their parents, even babies, and put them in these detention centers, is this what America has become? You know, we are the vanguards of liberties and freedoms and constitutional rights. To do that by the policy of this administration is totally unacceptable. We’re the epicenter of wrong here. We don’t know what has happened to our ship. We got to bring it back to those values, those American values. We’re very upset, to say the least.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet there are certainly Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump and support stronger border enforcement. How does his rhetoric on immigrants go over with people who might have voted for Donald Trump?

Hector Flores:
They’re not listening to his — they’re only listening to his rhetoric and not seeing what his presidency has done to people in need, those refugees that are coming here, fleeing violence and economic hardships in their home countries, in Mexico and others in Central and South America. But many others, even from Africa now they’re coming in to Mexico and other countries and going through those borders. It’s not just Mexicans and Central Americans that are coming to our borders seeking asylum. Where have you heard of people not being given the right to asylum? We have that as part of our contract with other nations that we will open. And so they’ve slowed the process of those seeking asylum by some of the problems I just mentioned.

Frederica Freyberg:
Very quickly, how on important are Hispanics to the vote for president in 2020 nationally and here in Wisconsin?

Hector Flores:
Well, let me just say that the road to the presidency of the United States of America goes through our barrios, our cities, our counties and our states where we predominate. We predominate in about six major cities. Many of those are going to be some cities that if people go out and vote, I understand and I’ve seen some of the research, that the only reason that Donald Trump won was because people did not vote. If people had gotten off their duff and gone and voted, he wouldn’t have won. We have a problem with the Electoral College, winner-take-all because we know that — probably Hillary had three million more popular votes. We have engaged in a lawsuit trying to change that system. We’re suing four major cities on how they determine how the voting is split once the elections are taken.

Frederica Freyberg:
Mr. Flores, I want to get you on this, lastly. What is your comment on nationwide ICE raids scheduled by the Trump Administration for this weekend?

Hector Flores:
I don’t think terrorizing people is the way to do it. Just like anything else, we don’t accept criminals or people committing crimes in our country. We think law enforcement should come in and root those that come here to do harm to anybody or violate our laws. But we don’t think crossing that border should be a criminal act. That’s a civil act. You receive fines and what-have-you. We hope that in the near future, we will sponsor through our friends in Congress and the Senate, legislation to make it strictly a civil offense, like getting a ticket and going and paying your fine and then working with those. We think that immigrants coming to our country, like in the past, should have every right to citizenship, a way to citizenship, but they must comply with different things so they can earn. We believe in earned citizenship.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We need to live it there. Hector Flores, thank you very much.

Hector Flores:
It’s my pleasure to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
President Trump also visited Milwaukee Friday. He came to Wisconsin to discuss the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement and hold a fund-raiser. It’s the president’s sixth visit to Wisconsin since taking office.