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By: Donny Simcha Guttman
Former Democrat NYC Councilman, Ruben Diaz Sr. recently appeared on 770 WABC’s “The Cats Roundtable,” radio show, where he shared his thoughts on the state of the 2024 race from the perspective of his Hispanic heritage, “Biden’s disastrous immigration stance has caused an unrelenting surge of migrants to flood New York City and other urban areas across the country, leading more and more Hispanic voters who typically lean Democratic to defect from the party and instead back Donald Trump. Hispanics, as with other voters, object to people coming over the border ‘without papers’ and diverting resources from citizens…. That is the worst thing that the Democratic Party and President Biden [have] done. Maybe they thought that by opening the border, we, the Hispanic community, would be happy. But it has been the Achilles heel [for] them because now even the immigrants here are against them. Hispanics no longer support the Democratic Party as strong[ly] as they used to.”
Diaz Sr., a controversial, conservative Democrat is part of a recent wave of Latinos once part of the Democrat party who are taking a look at the Republican party for the first time. Despite rhetoric from moderate Republicans since 2012 that the party would need to support more immigration to have any chance of winning an election again, Donald Trump’s embrace of strict border controls and a pledge to deport millions of illegal aliens, has ironically brought more Latinos to the Republican party.
In 2020, Trump gained around 39% of the Latino vote, an 8% jump from 2016, and during the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans gained 10% compared to 2018. Recent polling heading into the presidential election shows Trump ahead of Biden 50-41%; some polls have it closer at 47-46%, Biden, but irrespective, the shift from 2020 to the present is stark, with Trump on course to gain between 8-11% of Latinos. Many Hispanics like Diaz, view illegal aliens as people that cut the line, especially as millions of Hispanic Americans are either legal aliens themselves or are descended from immigrants.
Since 2016, the issue of immigration has rocked the country; with a specific focus on the millions that have entered illegally into the US. Estimates range from 10-30 million illegals currently residing in the US. Though illegals cannot qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, many are eligible to receive temporary work visas and can get emergency care at a public hospital, putting a further strain on American taxpayers who are already dealing with a messed up system. Trump and America First politicians have been trying to get comprehensive border reform passed to build a wall and to give more resources to border control.
Still, Democrats during the Trump administration blocked such efforts. In recent months, a bipartisan agreement was reached between the White House and Republican lead immigration negotiator, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, however, most Republicans had objections to the bill as it allowed thousands of illegals to potentially enter the US daily before the border could be shut down. The continuing humanitarian and political crisis in regards to illegal immigration will continue to remain a top issue in the upcoming election. Illegal immigration not only continues to be a major political issue in the US, but a global issue that many countries in Europe have been confronting. Countries including the UK, France, Germany, Poland, etc. have all in recent years been battling the rise of illegal aliens invading their respective countries; many European citizens have been expressing dismay at current governments, by voting for more right-leaning parties who promise to deal with the crisis, including in the recent EU parliamentary election.
