Florida Democrats want to win back Latino voters. It could be too late.

One professor called Democrats’ approach to Hispanic voters “wrought with entitlement.” TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Democrats have long taken Latino voters for granted — a decision that contributed to former President Donald Trump’s success here two years ago. Now they’re finally trying to fix the problem ahead of the November midterms. Party leaders say the steady erosion of support from the key constituency — which in Florida includes a diverse mix of Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and others — is helping rewire how they campaign in a new era. The party is rolling out a blueprint that calls for crafting political messages similar to those aimed at independent voters, boosting resources for Latino outreach and campaigning sooner within Hispanic communities. A group of women said that if Title 42 ended they would run to the bridge at the border to request asylum, because returning to their homes was not an option. Melida Castro, a 32-year-old from Honduras, has been at the shelter for four months with her children, ages 3 and 8. “There’s nothing more for us to do but wait,” she said, explaining she had fled Honduras after a gang killed her uncle. “I saw him die in my arms,” she said. Her family crossed the border once and turned themselves over to Border Patrol agents, but they were flown to El Paso and pushed back to Mexico. She said the agents mentioned Title 42, but didn’t explain what it meant. While word of lifting the asylum limits provided a glimmer of hope, the possibility was also met with suspicion. Delaying the lifting until late May, when the Biden administration has had more than a year in office to prepare, struck some as a way to buy time until the U.S. government can come up with another obstacle. In mid-March, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), who is running to challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, traveled to Puerto Rico for three days to meet with elected officials, local entrepreneurs and union members. State Sen. Annette Taddeo (D-Miami), who is running to become Florida’s first Latina governor, is set to travel to the island in May. A third Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, made an early campaign hire in Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, a longtime Democratic consultant who has focused on Spanish language disinformation. Yet with Republicans making huge inroads with Florida’s Latino voters in recent election cycles — Joe Biden won Latino-heavy Miami-Dade County by just 7 points while Hillary Clinton won it by nearly 30 points four years earlier — it could be too late for Democrats to succeed. Some say the new approach isn’t being adopted widely enough. “We need to be in more agreement that Hispanic voters in Florida are a universe of voters that are persuadable that Republicans can win, not [Democratic] base voters,” said veteran Democratic consultant Christian Ulvert. “That is critical because of how the party allocates resources differently when trying to persuade a voter to vote for Democrats rather than turn them out.” Democratic Party officials would not discuss specifically how much they will spend on Hispanic outreach efforts in 2022, but noted a recently announced $2.5 million voter registration drive that will include an emphasis on Latino voters. “Suddenly they’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to lift it,’” said Victor Sanchez, who fled Honduras with his wife and her three younger siblings. They have been staying at another shelter in Ciudad Juarez for a month. The nine-bedroom concrete Oscar Romero House shelter clusters around a small courtyard with a pomegranate tree where children play after returning from school. The parents sit on the second floor terrace, fearful to go outside, sharing care of the youngest children and looking across the dusty desert cityscape to the mountains of El Paso less than 10 miles away. Katherine, Sanchez’s wife, had a baby while in Mexico. “If we have to wait, we wait,” she said. “Now that there are organizations that can help us, we’ll wait for a legal way.” There have been signs that the Biden administration has been preparing for an expected surge of asylum seekers trying to make their way to the border. Two weeks ago, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited Mexico and Costa Rica to discuss managing migration flows. Without providing details, Mayorkas said he had reached a “migration arrangement” with Costa Rica. In his State of the Union Address this month, President Joe Biden had said, “We’re securing commitments and supporting partners in South and Central America to host more refugees and secure their own borders.” Both Mexico and Costa Rica are taking in substantial numbers of asylum seekers that in many cases would otherwise try to enter the United States. They could also be critical in trying to control the flow of migrants to the U.S. border. Last month, Costa Rica started requiring visas for Venezuelans and Cubans, a step toward slowing their migration north. Mexico already required visas of Cubans and added Venezuelans in January. Still, large numbers of migrants have been reaching the border. The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that about 7,100 migrants were coming daily, compared with an average of about 5,900 a day in February and on pace to match or exceed highs from last year, 2019 and other peak periods. Camilo Cruz, a spokesman with the United Nations International Organization for Migration, said this week that every U.S. move on immigration affects migration flows in the region. “It moves people, generates hope or some kind of speculation by the traffickers,” Cruz said. “That motivates people to come to try to cross the border.” He said the IOM supports a network of shelters along the border and has worked in recent years to build their capacity. Immigration advocacy groups applauded the decision, which they universally viewed as long overdue. Like the migrants, some questioned the delay until late May when the Biden administration has had months to prepare. “A phased wind-down strategy just further proves this was never about public health,” Erin Mazursky, interim director of Families Belong Together, a coalition of groups opposed to Trump-era immigration policies, said in a statement. “This policy was in place for two years too long and the reported decision to extend Title 42 until May 23rd is simply another excuse to expel more people. If the intent is to stop upending people’s lives and hold true to America’s commitment to asylum and due process, the expulsions must end now.” U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, a Los Angeles-area Democrat, told reporters in a conference call Thursday that administration officials visited congressional offices this week to brief lawmakers and their staffs on plans for accommodating larger numbers of migrants — up to about three times the current flow under one scenario. The administration is “working very hard at finding a way to process migrants lawfully, humanely and efficiently,” she said. __ Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report. Visit us for more information at: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html