Culinary Union, immigration activists launch initiative to dump Trump and GOP

By Ric Anderson

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 | 12:12 p.m.

The Culinary Union and a number of immigration advocacy organizations announced today that they were partnering on a multimillion-dollar initiative to energize Nevada voters against Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates.

Standing before full-sized cutouts of Trump and Rep. Cresent Hardy, R-Nev., activists outlined a multi-pronged effort to register immigrant voters and rally them against GOP candidates. Titled Immigrant Voters Win, the campaign will involve door-to-door canvasing, mailings, phone calls and advertising, starting with a Day of Action event at 10 a.m. Saturday at the union's headquarters, 1630 S. Commerce St. Other partners include Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, the Center for Community Change Action, Latino Victory Project and America's Voice.

"We think that Donald Trump — his hatred and his bigotry — give us a very unique opportunity to engage these voters," said Francisco Morales, a former staff member for Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who is serving as state director of Immigrant Voters Win.

The campaign's goal: Galvanize 120,000 immigrant voters and bring them to the polls. In addition to Trump and Hardy, activists are targeting Senate candidate Joe Heck and House candidate Danny Tarkanian, also Republicans.

"While Trump, Hardy, Heck and Tarkanian may be the Republican Dream Team, to the rest of us Americans they're a nightmare," said prominent Las Vegas activist Astrid Silva, a PLAN organizer.

Yvanna Cancela, the Culinary's political director, said the union's 57,000 workers included immigrants from 160 countries who speak 40 different languages. Noting that polling had shown that 87 percent of Latino families in Las Vegas had a negative view of Trump, Cancela said the New York businessman and Nevada's GOP candidates have "shown that they do not want to speak for families like ours."

Morales said Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric, along with the Supreme Court's recent split on President Barack Obama's executive order to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, would help energize immigrant voters.

"We think (turnout among Hispanic voters in Nevada) is going to be historic," he said, "even greater than the number who turned out for the 2012 presidential election."

As part of the Immigrant Voters Win campaign, activists will educate voters on how to register and explain why it is critical this year for immigrants to come to the polls.

Las Vegas resident Estefani Guillermo, who took part in a news conference this morning to announce the initiative, said she didn't feel compelled to register to vote when she turned 18. But this year, alarmed by Trump, she plans to vote. She also said her family had been affected by the Supreme Court's non-ruling, meaning she would vote for a president and congressional candidates who would push for immigration reforms.

"When I go out and vote, I'll keep in mind the harsh words of Donald Trump," she said. "If I want to make a difference in my community, I have to go out and vote."