LAS VEGAS– Minutes later Donald Trump delivered his standard warnings about drug dealers and criminals crossing the border illegally at a campaign event on Saturday, the former president heard from someone who was once in the country illegally but now plans to vote for him.
Elias Trujillo was one of several people who spoke Saturday at a Latino roundtable in Las Vegas aimed at highlighting Trump’s economic ideas. After Trump finished addressing a small crowd in the warehouse of a women’s cosmetics company, members of the roundtable spoke. Trujillo began with his personal story of how his mother brought him and his brothers from northern Mexico to Utah in 1995 to rejoin their father, who worked in construction.
“We came here legally, but you know, we stayed too long and we were able to make a life here in the United States,” Trujillo said, referring to the move to enter the U.S. on a legal visa, but not to leave when that visa expires.
At least one person in the audience started laughing and clapping, prompting Trujillo to laugh and acknowledge, “It’s funny.” Trump smiled as he looked at Trujillo.
The moment highlighted the contradictory ways in which facts and rhetoric speak to each other immigration play in the campaign. The paradoxes are sharper because Trump has simultaneously banked on more support from Latinos to return him to the White House while centering his campaign on a dark view of immigration.
Trump has said migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, called the recent influx across the southern border an “invasion” and vowed to launch mass deportations when he returns to the White House.
The day before his roundtable in Las Vegas, Trump was in Aurora, Colorado, where he darkly warned that a Venezuelan gang is terrorizing a city of 400,000 that has become a magnet for migrants from that country. The city’s Republican mayor said Trump is distorting an isolated problem in the city.
On Saturday, Trump launched his usual criticism of border policies before pivoting to general praise for the demographic group he was courting.
“Spanish people – they say you can’t generalize, but I think you can – they have great entrepreneurship and they have – oh, you have so much energy? Take it a little easier, okay? Take it easy,” Trump said. “You have great ambition, you have a lot of energy, you are very smart, and you really have that, just like natural entrepreneurs.”
Trump has generally smoothed over any apparent conflict between his warnings on immigration and his support from Latino voters since 2016, when he began his first campaign, by warning of “rapists” crossing the southern border. Many Hispanic voters entered the country legally — or have roots in the U.S. that go back generations — and oppose illegal immigration.
The former president and Republican candidate has argued that his economic and immigration policies would often help Latinos and other minorities which is contrary to economic data that immigrants take what he calls “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.” About 8 in 10 Hispanic voters say the economy is “one of the most important issues” this election season, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research.
Overall, Hispanic voters are about equally likely to say they have a positive view of Trump and vice president Kamala HarrisTrump’s Democratic opponent. Trujillo said during his speech that he was initially wary of Trump but has grown to support the former president.
Trujillo described how his lack of legal status made him unsure of what he could achieve, but how he had to “make the best of my life.” He said he had graduated from high school, was married and had two children, now 12 and five.
He opened a restaurant that he said is in trouble because of the high cost of labor and goods, and said he hoped Trump would usher in better economic times.
“I’m excited for the opportunity that Trump has again to get going and hopefully get us back on track,” Trujillo said. “I think there is room to make America greater.”
Afterwards, Trujillo said in an interview that although his parents overstayed their visas, they achieved legal status. Likewise, Trujillo has been a US citizen since 2011.
He said he has come to understand Trump’s vocal opposition to those entering the country illegally over concerns about drug and sex trafficking.
But Trujillo said, unprompted, that he favors a way for people who are in the country illegally to obtain legal status, especially people who have worked and followed the law.
“I mean, maybe not an easy road,” he said. “But there should be a path for those who are already here illegally, but who have created a life.”
That proposal has been a hallmark of immigration reform policy for decades. Labeled “amnesty” by immigration hardliners, opposition to allowing people who lived in the country illegally to become citizens is part of what led to Trump’s political rise.
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Riccardi reported from Denver.