Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign Hires Latino Decisions [Report]
- Ma. Elena
- Aug 20, 2015 06:00 AM EDT
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Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has employed Latino-owned company Latino Decisions to the polling team.
According to NBC News Latino's sources, the hiring of Latino Decisions was done to "build up the outreach efforts of the Clinton campaign into the Latino community" and to gain vital knowledge about Latino voters. Latino Decisions has worked with several groups with profound connections with the Latino community, such as America's Voice and National Council of La Raza.
The polling team's co-Principles, Matt Barreto and Gary Segura, are armed with "a significant amount of academic heft" for their process, the news outlet added. Barreto is a professor of political science and Chicano Studies at UCLA, while Segura teaches political science at Stanford University.
The Clinton campaign also sought the help of other Latino specialists, such as Amanda Renteria, the team's National Political Director, and Lorella Praeli as their Latino Outreach Director, NBC News Latino wrote. Praeli, a DREAMer activist, is a former illegal immigrant, Vox reported.
Clinton's move to hire more Latinos in their polling team is a result of a study done by PowerPAC+, which emphasized the small number of minority firms hired by Democrats as paid campaign consultants, the news outlet took note.
"Even though the vast majority of Latinos and African Americans vote for Democrats, about 98 percent of the $514 million spent by the three national Democratic Party committees in 2012 went to non-minority consultants," NBC News Latino further explained.
The Clinton campaign's latest moves catering to the Latino community are proof of the presidential hopeful's quest to gain the minority's trust after her statement against them in June 2014. Last year, Clinton said that the children and families from Central America "should be sent back," Vox noted.
"They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who the responsible adults in their family are . . . We have to send a clear message that 'Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean your child gets to stay. We don't want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or encourage more children to make that dangerous journey," Clinton said last year, as quoted by the news outlet.
Clinton has changed her stance on the matter, given how she is now pushing to end the detention of immigrant families. She said that sending back an immigrant child to a country where harm awaits them should not happen. Clinton admitted that some "would be sent back after a fair hearing," but a lot of them wouldn't be, Vox noted.
"And what I've been arguing for is let's get the resources in place, so that we can actually find out what happens to these children. I don't like them being kept in detention centers," she explained, as reported by Vox.
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