Hovde and King met with several Republican Latinos including community activists associated with El Conquistador Newspaper and Huyke, its publisher at Lareños, a Puerto Rican food restaurant.
By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
February 22, 2024
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - On Wednesday, Eric Hovde (R), a candidate for the U.S. Senate and David D. King, also a known Republican and a candidate for Mayor in Milwaukee held a roundtable discussion at Lareños Restaurant in the Southside of Milwaukee. Those in attendance were Geary Morales, Veronica Díaz, Walter Garron, Leo Molina, Victor Huyke, the Publisher of El Conquistador, Hilario DeLeon, the Chair of the Milwaukee County Republican Party and others.
During the roundtable discussion, Hovde said that he was in the Southside of Milwaukee to learn about the concerns that people had, he discussed federal immigration issues and about how some people wanted to defund the police, but came short to recognize that his own political party in the U.S. Senate recently failed to pass a border security bill that would have helped secure the border. Hovde didn't discuss the root issue why Milwaukee activists wanted to defund the police, which seemed that he didn't agree to defund the police.
Also King confirmed to those attending the roundtable discussion that during a previous interview, that he would "not allow Milwaukee to become a sanctuary city because it would destroy Milwaukee, if it becomes a sanctuary city...we got to make sure there are none in Wisconsin that's because the robbery and crime starts to go up," referring to a high immigrant crime wave. In other words, King failed to recognize that Milwaukee doesn't have to be a sanctuary city to have high crime, since Milwaukee already has a high Black crime rate.
Both Hovde and King didn't offer any concrete solutions nor did they focus on their own campaign platforms that would attract the Latino vote for the Republicans. The majority of the Latino votes in the Southside for decades have been for Democrats. Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee have a history of voting for Democrats.
The City of Milwaukee Mayor's race is nonpartisan.
It seems that Hovde hasn't committed to supporting a comprehensive immigration reform bill with a path to U.S. citizenship for more than 11M undocumented immigrants that crossed the border without seeking asylum and his campaign website hasn't been updated yet to reflect that his own Republican Party U.S. Senators refused to recently pass (blocked) a bipartisan border security bill because Trump told them not too. It won't be until 2025, when the U.S. Congress can address the border security issue. In other words, the Republican Party doesn't want border security and want the border to remain open for countless of asylum seekers to be processed and become a burden to taxpayers, so they can use it as a political campaign issue.
King confirming that he doesn't want for Milwaukee to become a sanctuary city because it brings a high immigrant crime rate, can be perceived as being an anti-immigrant candidate for mayor, it doesn't look like many Latinos in the Southside of Milwaukee would vote for neither of them.
Attempts by Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA) to contact Huyke for comment were unsuccessful.
Undocumented immigrants in Wisconsin contribute more than $94M in combined taxes per year.
Editor's note: When Sanctuary City is mentioned, it refers to cities in the U.S. that welcome undocumented immigrants who have crossed the U.S. border illegally, but don't seek asylum. Asylum seekers are usually legally processed by U.S. Immigration and Customs and are awaiting final determination whether to remain in the U.S..
Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA)
