By Elaina Batista, Contributor
Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump both had the opportunity to speak to Latino undecided voters in recent weeks.
On Oct. 10, Harris was asked a series of questions in a town hall meeting in Las Vegas, broadcast by Univision, an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network. Questions ranged from immigration and health care to abortion and the economy. Most of the questions were asked in Spanish and then translated to her.
According to NC Newsline, when Harris was asked about immigration, she admitted that the country has a broken immigration system. When answering a question about illegal immigrants not having access to healthcare due to their citizenship status, Harris vowed to bring back and sign into law the bipartisan border security law. This border security law increases resources and changes policies to close loopholes being exploited by criminal cartels. As reported by NC Newsline, Harris plans to work on fixing the system so that there is a, “humane pathway to earn citizenship for hardworking people.”
The goal of this town hall was for Harris to get her message across to the undecided Latino voter. According to New York Times polls, Harris has less support from Hispanic/Latino voters than President Joe Biden did four years ago. Harris is struggling the most with gaining support from Hispanic/Latino men, as reported by the New York Times.
In the town hall, Harris made an effort to respond to all inquiries and offer a strategy for what she would do in office. When asked about healthcare, Harris said she believes that “access to healthcare is a right and should be a right, and not a privilege of those who can afford it or have access to it easily.”
Former President Trump was given the same opportunity as Harris to speak to Hispanic/Latino voters on Univision on Wednesday, Oct. 16. According to NPR, Trump made the argument that Hispanic/Latino voters were better off with him as president. In this town hall, Jorge Velázquez, a farmer from California, questioned Trump about who would work on farms if he deported millions of undocumented migrant laborers. Trump answered the question by focusing on crimes committed by people in the country illegally.
“So we want workers and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally… They have to love our country,” Trump stated in the town hall. “They have to love you, love our people.”
Trump neglected to answer the second part of the question, concerning the price of food in the absence of farm workers.
Recent polls as reported by AS/CO, show that Harris is leading within the Hispanic/Latino community. As of right now, 52% say they cast their vote for Harris, 40% would cast their vote for Trump and 8% are undecided. According to AS/CO, 36 million Latinos are eligible to vote which makes up around 15% of eligible voters.
With the election only 15 days away, it is crucial that Harris and Trump make valiant efforts to appeal to all demographics to win this election.