"Mexican Immigrant Mayra Flores seems to symbolize Republican hopes that Latinos will increasingly support the party."
New York Times reporter Ian Prasad Philbrick spoke with fellow colleague Jennifer Medina who recently interviewed Mayra Flores, a self-described Latina Republican born in Mexico. Flores recently won a special election in March to serve out the term of Democrat Rep. Filemon Vela. Regarding immigration:
Ian Prasad Philbrick: Immigration seems like a complex issue there. Flores is an immigrant who campaigned on border security, and many of her voters have family who at some point crossed the border.
Jennifer Medina: "A lot of them trace their ancestry back to Mexico. The border is in their everyday lives. To hear Flores tell it, the border is in disarray, though not everybody in her district thinks that way. People who support her and support Trump make a big distinction between legal and illegal immigration. They say a version of, "Nobody who's coming in now is doing it the right way. People should get in line and do it the way we did it."
They also couch their support for closing the border or putting up a border wall in terms of human trafficking, drugs and gangs. There's a sense that Mexico and the border are more dangerous now. But a lot of people I talked to, including Republicans, have empathy for immigrants. Even if they despise current policy, there's a notion of "We want to help them."
Are Hispanic voters revealing their preferences for reduced immigration, or is this a backlash against Democrats during the worst border surge in history?
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