dSosa saw the harsh realities of Donald Trump's immigration policies and worried that many Latino voters in Saginaw, Michigan, were not taking the former president's mass deportation threats seriously.
As a child welfare officer in Saginaw, Sosa placed unaccompanied refugee youth with foster families and watched the Trump administration. Separation of children from parents on alert at the border with Mexico in 2018. He said the brutality of that policy and the former president's threats against legal refugees in the United States should be a warning that Trump could do what he says.
“A lot of Latinos or Hispanics, whether in Saginaw, Michigan or the country, when they hear him say those things, they don't believe he's talking about that,” Sosa said.
“What really worries me is that people don't remember their history. This has happened before. We have seen mass deportations of American citizens both before and when it happened.
After all, support for Trump is rising among Latinos, who make up 15% of voters nationwide. The New York Times showed that one in 10 Hispanic voters with roots in Spanish-speaking countries, who backed Biden in 2020, would vote for Trump this year in a recent Siena poll.
Support for Democratic presidential candidates among Hispanic and Latino voters has been declining for years. Barack Obama obtained 70% of the votes. Polls give Harris only 56% support.
A Siena poll identified that Harris is losing ground among Hispanic voters on immigration, the economy and crime. Meanwhile, Trump has strengthened his support even as his anti-immigrant rhetoric has become more threatening and, in the case of some Hispanic voters, because of it.
Two-thirds said they “didn't feel like he was talking about me” when Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists, said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and threatened to use wartime powers to deport millions of people. . More than 40% support Trump's promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico and his deportation policy.
Among them is Saginaw County Latina installer Andrea Bassel, a Republican. The former president is addressing a large swath of Hispanic voters in the undecided county, which Trump won in 2016 and four years later Joe Biden won back by just 303 votes in favor of the Democrat.
“When I created the group, I woke up the next morning and immediately had 35 people who believed what I believed and they were embarrassed and couldn't talk about who they supported,” he said. .
Questions and answers
Why Saginaw, Michigan?
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In what is expected to be a very close US election, with some voters in key battleground states, The Guardian examines Saginaw, Michigan. It's a swing state in a swing state where voters have more influence than the end of the battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Chris McCreal examines the issues that concern voters of all political backgrounds in Saginaw ahead of the November election.
Saginaw voters: tell us what issues the US election will decide
“I am conservative. I'm voting for Donald Trump. I am an outsider because I do not hide that fact. I became involved in the Republican Party because I felt I was not represented not only in my career, but in my thinking. I feel like we, as Latinos, are traditionally conservative.
Paschall, a customer success manager who ran for county commissioner earlier this year, said Trump's threats only target those who are in the country illegally and that Trump's extreme statements are little more than rhetoric policy. Latinos are afraid.
“The tone is sensational. The tone is to make people aware. It makes people listen. All your ears are erect. You have an emotional reaction, and that's what it's all about,” he said.
“I'm not necessarily offended by those things. First, we love immigrants. I'm definitely pro-immigration, but I don't care what color you are, I don't care where you're from, if you enter this country illegally it's a problem for me and a lot of people. Believe what I believe, including many Latinos.”
But Trump's attacks are not limited to the undocumented. Sosa noted that his false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating family pets were directed at people who have permission to be in the United States.
“Many immigrants call out Trump's attacks on legal status. Haitians affected by Trump are under temporary protection. I work with refugees. I see Haitians, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans. Honestly, when I look at the rhetoric, it's very ignorant because they are here legally “But I fear what will happen to them if Trump returns,” he said.
However, Pascal continues to defend Trump's claims about Haitians.
“I didn't learn this Donald Trump. In fact, I learned from citizens on TikTok: 'This is what's happening in my city. We have serious problems with animals that are eaten alive in our streets. “It is not okay to ignore them because we are afraid to say that they belong to a certain country or that they have a certain skin color,” he said.
If there is racism, it comes from white liberals, Bashall said, and as a Latino, he should not support Trump. He describes this opinion as “so deeply ingrained that they don't realize they are racist.”
Latinos make up 9% of Saginaw County's population. Most are of Mexican descent, whose families were drawn to the area in the first half of the 20th century by the American automobile industry and other factory jobs.
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Sosa said that with many generations born in the United States, the connection to their ancestors' experience as immigrants diminishes or is broken. Additionally, many are struggling financially in parts of downtown Saginaw that have long been in economic decline, with abandoned and demolished homes dotting once-bustling neighborhoods.
“When you compare immigration to the economy and health care, those issues affect the typical Latino more now. “Obviously, someone from the first generation, maybe they've been here a little longer, maybe they're more at risk in the game, but other than psychologically in general, it doesn't affect us as much as you might think,” he said.
There are other factors at play. The number of Mexicans crossing the border to work without visas has fallen sharply in recent years, and large numbers now arrive as refugees from Central and South America. They sometimes face hostility from more established Latino communities, 60% of which are of Mexican descent.
Changing religious allegiances may explain increased support for Trump. Pascal left the Roman Catholic Church for an evangelical church. She is not alone. The number of Latinos who identify as Catholic in the United States has fallen from 67% to 43% since 2010. More than 20% say they are Protestant, and most members of evangelical churches lean more toward supporting Trump.
But Bassall said Trump's support was driven by the same issues that won him votes in other parts of the country.
“When Trump was president, we saw lower gas prices and more food than I could afford. “And we get tired of saying one thing and then not following through on what you said,” he said.
“People are voting by the margin we want. We don't want the same old thing. We are tired of the same politicians being in the same place, giving us the same thing, the same spiel and getting the same null result.
For some, the issue of immigration overshadows everything. Ángel Gómez, a medical therapist, said he fears what another Trump presidency could mean for his family.
“I pass for white, but there is still the fear of drowning in it. “I have an undocumented family and I fear that by separating them, not only will my family be harmed, but I will also be harmed,” she said.
This has happened twice in our history, when people say, “Oh, that's not real fear.” This also happened during President Bush's administration, when he had undocumented soldiers go to war and then deported them when they returned.
Gómez pointed to a Florida law that criminalized the transportation of undocumented immigrants into the state and that was blocked earlier this year by a federal court. He said that if the Trump administration passed such laws, it would criminalize you for taking your family members on vacation.
Sosa said she and some other Latinos felt more vulnerable because Democrats did not adequately protect them. He accused some Democrats of playing Trump's game, including the party's Michigan U.S. Senate candidate, Eliza Slatkin.
“In his ads in Michigan, he specifically said that he wants to make it harder to come here as a refugee, which is really sad because it reflects the idea that a lot of refugees are coming when America is really being built. “A number of refugees can come here a year, and normally we are around that number,” he said.
“I'll be very honest, Democrats don't inspire me to go to the polls and call voters because of their stance on immigrants and refugees. . It was very depressing. Has reduced. But the alternatives are so bad for me on all those issues that I would never consider voting for them.
