White supremacists loved Donald Trump’s immigration speech. His Latino supporters, not so much. Trump has even lost some of his Latino surrogates following Wednesday’s hate-filled speech. An August 20 meeting had left some hopeful that Trump would soften his rhetoric, but:
“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” said Monty, a Houston attorney who has aggressively made the Latino case for Trump. “What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate.” [...]
“When we met [earlier in August] he was going to approach this issue with a realistic plan, a compassionate plan, with a plan that was not disruptive to the immigrants that were here that were not lawbreakers,” said Monty, one of the Latino leaders who met with the candidate at Trump Tower recently, a gathering at which Trump reportedly softened his tone toward undocumented immigrants already in the country. “He didn’t deliver any of that.”
Monty told NBC News that he feels now that Trump “listens to whomever speaks to him last and that's dangerous.”
Alfonso Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said he was “inclined” to stop supporting Trump, because:
“It’s so disappointing because we feel we took a chance, a very risky chance,” Aguilar said. “We decided to make a big U-turn to see if we could make him change. We thought we were moving in the right direction … we’re disappointed. We feel misled.”
If this is how people who had been out publicly in support of Trump as committed Republicans feel, you have to figure he lost still more ordinary Latino voters, the ones who don’t lead Republican groups or get meetings with Trump. But “Latino Trump supporters” was always a small group. The biggest impact the speech stands to have with Latino voters is by bringing people out to the polls in November who might otherwise have stayed home. Because Trump just served notice to Latinos across America: If I become president, be very afraid.