Tim Kaine said Hillary Clinton would lead efforts to pass immigration reform in the first 100 days of her administration. | Getty Kaine: Trump thinks 'Latinos are second-class people'

Tim Kaine blasted Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Monday, saying the Republican presidential nominee believes “Latinos are second-class people.”

In an interview with Telemundo, conducted exclusively in Spanish, the Democratic vice-presidential hopeful also weighed in on immigration reform, making the case for his party’s appeal to Latinos “of any kind.”


“Donald Trump, not only is he fighting against immigration reform, using words of malice,” Kaine said. “As Latinos of any kind — a new immigrant, a governor of New Mexico, a well-respected federal judge — to Donald Trump, Latinos are second-class people.”

When asked about Hillary Clinton’s stance on unaccompanied migrants seeking asylum, the Virginia senator said Democrats largely supported immigration reform — saying the U.S. had “a responsibility” to help victims of violence in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador— despite comments by Clinton in the past in which she called to deport them, remarks she has since retracted.

“It is important to have a control system of the border, and in the first days when there was a large number of people, it was difficult to decide what to do,” Kaine said. “But now we understand the reasons why those children are coming here.”

Kaine, whose fluency in Spanish could heighten his appeal to Latino voters, said Clinton would lead efforts to pass immigration reform in the first 100 days of her administration.

He also weighed in on the Democratic National Committee emails leaked on Friday, which led DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to announce her resignation just a day before the Philadelphia Convention was set to begin. “Bernie [Sanders] is a friend of mine,” Kaine said. And although the progressive senator ran an “outstanding campaign,” voters “decided to choose Hillary.”

“It’s a problem, and it’s possible that some people who were writing those emails will be in trouble. But my focus right now is winning in November and the convention in Philadelphia, and we should respect people’s votes in the states,” he said.