Donald Trump will be lucky to win 20 percent of the Latino vote if he makes it to the general election, according to today’s polls.
He called Mexicans “rapists,” threw the most prominent Latino reporter out of a press conference, and wants to put his name on a wall running the length of the border with Mexico. Piñatas are literally being made out of him and selling like hotcakes in Mexico.
So who the hell are the 1 in 5 Latinos who are viva Trump?
Shawn Bambaro is a 39-year-old black car limo company owner in Miami, the son of Colombian immigrants, and runs the“Latinos Support Trump” Facebook group. And he agrees with Trump on immigration.
“There has to be a process where illegals go back,” he said of Trump’s desire to initially deport all undocumented immigrants in the United States. “And like he says very clearly: is it going to happen overnight? Are we kicking down doors and taking mothers from babies? No. The media again wants to portray this image that ICE agents are going to be at every illegal’s door.”
Lhessa Lyons, a 41-year-old Trump supporter of Dominican heritage who is a research analyst for a government contracting firm, also says she is a fan of Trump's immigration plan.
Lyons said she never created a Facebook page for a politician until“Latinos for Donald Trump.”
“I’m not partisan. I try to vote for whoever I think is best at the time. I don’t consider myself a Republican or a Democrat.”
But she said she would vote for Trump in a general election, endorsing both his plans for undocumented immigrant deportation and the “Trump Wall.” Lyons was not offended by Trump’s infamous “rapists” comment.
“I think it’s acceptable because he was telling the truth,” Lyons said. “When you have illegal immigrants crossing the border, it’s a mixed bag. You don’t know who those people are exactly. Some of them can be criminals and rapists.”
“The reality is some of them are rapists. Some of them are criminals,” she said. “That’s a reality and that’s why the border needs to be secured.”
Likewise, Bambaro said he created his Facebook page in direct response to Trump’s immigration comments, seeking to show people that not all Latinos dislike the Donald.
“It really didn’t evolve until Trump had come out and talked about the illegal immigration problem that was going on with the majority of Mexicans crossing the border that are coming in illegally,” he said. “No one initially among the people that I know had a problem with that statement.”
Bambaro was also careful to make the distinction between his Colombian heritage and that of Mexican-Americans.
Mark P. Jones, a professor of Latin American Studies at Rice University, agreed that the Hispanic community, unlike the African-American community, is less likely to be “politically monolithic.”
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