Los Angeles Times
By Kate Linthicum
February 11, 2016
Two
dozen Latino celebrities came together Thursday to implore voters to
reject Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and other top Republican presidential
candidates who they say have
turned their backs on the Latino community and “embraced the party of
Trump.”
In
"an open letter to the Latino community” published online, Carlos
Santana, George Lopez, Zoe Saldana and other prominent Latino
celebrities and activists say Donald
Trump’s GOP rivals have not done enough to distance themselves from the
Republican front-runner's anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“The
rest of the Republican presidential candidates went off the deep end
with him,” the letter says. “We’ve seen clearly that all the leading
Republican candidates have
sided with the far-right at the expense of the Latino community.
They’re capitalizing on negative stereotypes and inaccurate information
about our community in order to win votes from the GOP base.”
The
bilingual letter, which also was signed by "Parks and Recreation"
actress Aubrey Plaza, "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera and actor
Benjamin Bratt, was released by
People For the American Way, a left-leaning nonpartisan group that
targets what it describes as “right-wing extremism.” Another of the
letter's co-signers, labor and immigrant rights leader Dolores Huerta,
sits on the organization's board.
Its
main target is not Trump, whose has called Mexicans rapists who bring
drugs and crime to the U.S., but Rubio and Bush, two candidates who have
portrayed themselves
as more moderate alternatives and who are still attempting to break
through as the nomination process continues past Iowa and New Hampshire.
The
letter attacks Rubio for calling for a border wall and attacks Bush for
using the term “anchor babies” to refer to children born to immigrants
in the country illegally.
Bush used the term after Trump proposed revoking automatic citizenship
for those born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.
It
also criticizes both candidates for not supporting a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. Neither the Rubio
nor Bush campaign responded to requests
for comments on the letter.
The
letter comes as Rubio and Bush go head to head for Latino votes in
early primary states such as Nevada. Both candidates have made a claim
to the Latino electorate,
with Rubio emphasizing his Cuban roots and Bush flaunting his fluency
in Spanish.
The
candidates have both denounced Trump’s most controversial comments.
Bush, especially, has presented his views on immigration as softer and
more humane than Trump’s,
describing children being brought to the United States without
documentation as “an act of love,” and calling for a path to
legalization for the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country
illegally.
But according to the authors of the letter, neither has gone far enough.
“Even
if the eventual Republican nominee backtracks on his or her
anti-immigrant sentiments, we must not forget that we’ve now seen that
in the face of bigotry, the Republican
candidates have chosen to turn their backs on our community," the
letter says. It closes with a reminder about the growing power of the
Latino electorate, which this election will be larger than ever before.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment