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    • Texas Latino men shift support to Donald Trump, economy crucial
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    Texas Latino men shift support to Donald Trump, economy crucial

    Harry Posted on

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    As they stood on a sidewalk along Interstate 35 in Austin on Wednesday morning, their backs to a ravine and their attention turned to cars entering and exiting the Home Depot parking lot, day laborers were able to agree on a few things.

    Work has been progressing slowly lately. Gasoline, grocery shopping and rent prices are also quite steep.

    Most of the dozens of men were undocumented immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Haiti. They wore the long-sleeved shirts, jeans, sunglasses and baseball caps necessary for any concrete, flooring, plumbing or carpentry work the day might require.

    A pastel blue Chevrolet SUV pulled up in front of them and the men gathered around them. The driver offered $40 for five hours of work. Pickup truck required.

    Some of the men shrugged, a few grumbled, and most walked away. Two of them got the driver’s phone number.

    “Before COVID, we were setting the prices,” said Danilo G., 42, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala (the Statesman is not publishing his last name) who has lived in Austin for two decades. “Now they (drivers looking for workers) arrange them.”

    Danilo did not have a vote in Tuesday’s election, but like most of the day laborers who spoke to the American Statesman, he was optimistic about the results of the presidential race. Donald Trump’s victory appears to be the country’s best chance for an economic boom to recover from the downturn it has felt since the start of the pandemic, Danilo said.

    He said the Republican former president’s return to the White House appeared to be Danilo’s best chance for a sense of economic stability that has been eroded by inflation and was worth the potentially increased risk of deportation. This time, or at least on the morning the election results were still fresh, Trump’s presidency carried the whiff of opportunity.

    “More investment. “If things go well, this will create jobs,” Danilo said in Spanish, explaining what he expects. He also added, “Trump wants to deport people who do bad things. … I didn’t break any laws.”

    Trump vowed to launch the nation’s largest deportation program on his first day back in the White House.

    Such trends are also seen in some election analyses. Pre-election polls A study by the University of Texas suggested that 61% of Hispanic Texans have a negative view of the country’s current direction. Forty-nine percent of respondents, a large majority, see Trump as a better steward of the country’s economy than Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. On election night, an Edison Research exit poll for The Washington Post showed Trump Won majority of Latino voters in TexasIt’s a disastrous move against Democrats, including nearly two-thirds of Hispanic men. If these predictions are correct, the Hispanic results would be a historic victory for Republicans.

    Trump fared well in Tuesday’s election among diverse groups of Hispanic voters who traditionally vote for Democrats, including small-town, working-class Tejanos, Chicanos and Mexicans in Texas’ border counties, and Latino men more generally. For many blue-collar Latino immigrant men in Austin, the decision in the presidential election seemed rational: a disappointing economy and a perceived divide between the president-elect’s rhetoric and future policy had made the Trump vote intriguing. To these men the alternative seemed more certain discomfort.

    For Danilo, his preference for Trump is largely down to his weakened checkbook, but other disagreements with Democrats’ messaging have strengthened his distaste for the Harris ticket. As an evangelical Christian, she was alarmed by what she heard about increased nonbinary gender education in schools and an emphasis on abortion access.

    He eventually defined his general dissatisfaction with the existing order with a motto. “Those in power did not notice the difficulties of those who were powerless,” Danilo said, as his friends nodded at his explanations.

    Víctor R., a Mexican immigrant who lives in Austin and has worked as a day laborer for the past eight years, expressed similar frustrations with the economy. In recent years, work has fallen from a nearly flat level to no more than two jobs a week, he said.

    “The situation is dire right now. You’re earning just enough to survive right now,” Víctor said in Spanish.

    But he remains unconvinced by the rosy picture those around him have of accusations against Trump’s leadership and President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “Wars have come. The epidemic has arrived. “The immigration crisis came when Biden took office,” the 61-year-old Spanish speaker said. Trump “made it a piece of cake. … I hope there is something underneath this guy so we can see how he acts. “Promising is nothing.”

    Several men, including Víctor and Danilo, said that job scarcity and increased competition could make day laborers resentful of each other. Since Trump was first elected, the number of immigrant men waiting for work in the Home Depot parking lot has increased and diversified. The mostly Mexican and Central American immigrants now also include Venezuelans, Haitians and Cubans. That leaves both men open to Trump’s calls to reduce the number of crossings at the border.

    On the other side of the parking lot, 82-year-old Rito Recendez pushed an orange platform car with bags of cement and a 15-foot 2-by-4 that he planned to use to build a warehouse in his backyard. The retired farm worker and hotel worker immigrated from the Mexican state of Zacatecas 50 years ago and voted for the first time in 2020 after becoming a naturalized citizen. Recendez announced then that he had chosen Biden, a choice that seemed to represent change and normalcy.

    This time, Recendez planned to vote for Harris, but changed his mind “about a month” before Election Day after repeated objections from his grandson, who planned to vote for Trump and argued that the new president could improve costs and slow immigration. . Recendez said he believes too many new immigrants have taken advantage of welfare programs since he immigrated.

    He said Trump’s promises ultimately outweighed his discomfort with Trump’s comments, which he described as racist. He started giggling as he listed Trump’s insults.

    “We know they are not true,” Recendez said. “It bothers me a little, but we already know him.”

    This story has been updated to identify immigrants living in the United States illegally by first name only.

    Harry
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