There is nothing courageous about a political party standing big to undocumented people, arguably the most vulnerable and exploited people in America. There is nothing strong about separating families or outright head-hunting undocumented individuals, as Donald Trump and Ben Carson have advocated as part of their official platforms. There is nothing noble about energizing a Republican base with anti-immigrant slurs like ‘anchor babies’ and ‘illegals’. And so there’s no other choice for us Latinos: we must boycott the Republican party en masse.

If this suggestion sounds extreme, it might be because that’s how far right the Republican conversation has gone. On Tuesday night, Trump had his security physically remove Jorge Ramos, a celebrated Univision newsman largely considered the Walter Cronkite of the Spanish-speaking world, from his press conference in Iowa. Trump repeatedly tried to dodge Ramos’ questions, telling him to “sit down” before shouting at him: “Go back to Univision.” Trump then nodded to a security guard off to his left and Ramos was removed shortly thereafter.

As the #blacklivesmatter movement has shown, it is still a radical idea in America today for a black or brown person to maintain their own dignity in a climate where many would rather have them deported, incarcerated, or killed. For many Latinos – a group whose primary voting concern isn’t even about undocumented immigration – these attacks feel very personal.



When I hear Ben Carson openly advocate for the use of drone strikes on human beings at the US-Mexico border, I hear a man saying that he’d rather bomb my family (who hails from Texas) than shake our hands. When I hear Donald Trump, the leading Republican Party candidate, speak about a border fence, I hear a man saying he wishes I didn’t exist at all in this American fabric.



This is the scary part: those ideas are the exact racist, xenophobic things Republican supporters, and the candidates themselves, are explicitly saying at rallies across the country. At Donald Trump’s rally in Alabama this past Friday, supporters yelled openly about “white power” as Trump spoke out against undocumented immigrants. Trump supporter Jim Sherotta later told reporters at AL.com that he would like to create a vacation spot on the US-Mexico border that would charge a $25 permit and reward $50 for every confirmed kill.



Even more worrisome is the way the vocabulary of this rhetoric is coded, as Los Angeles Times journalist Jose Antonio Vargas has noted extensively. “Illegal” and “Mexican” have come to be used interchangeably by both Republican supporters and the candidates themselves. This should set off alarm bells in the minds of Latino voters and Americans everywhere. The Republican Party is not designed to include people like us. And it’s quickly becoming a promoter of and platform for white supremacist, hate group rhetoric.



Despite what Republicans promise, there is no way they can fight the demographics. In California today, 51% of all people under 25 are Latino. One out of six newlyweds (including myself) are part of an interracial union. Asians and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing immigrant group in the United States. The America of tomorrow will look vastly different than the imaginary America that Republicans are so eager to preserve. And while this might cause concern for some Americans, the news is actually pretty exciting. The consumer activity of documented and undocumented immigrants in the economy actually produces new jobs at a higher rate. And as a White House study has shown, this kind of economic activity is projected to increase the American GDP by 0.4-0.9% over a 10-year period.

The Republican rhetoric surrounding undocumented immigration is not only racist. It is also, statistically speaking, wrong. And not just a little wrong, but really, really wrong. So, let’s call this what it is: an ad hominem attack on all Latinos. Those of us who are or aren’t products of undocumented immigration, those of us whose families have inhabited the American Southwest, and the rest of this continent known simply as “America”, for longer than any white man can claim. America was a brown country before it was anything else. We’re still here. We still fight. We still, and will, vote. This is our country, and we can bring the Republican Party to its knees.

