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      Latino Civil Rights Group Demands Inquiry Into Texas Voter Fraud Raids

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      A Latino civil rights group is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a series of raids conducted on Latino voting activists and political operatives as part of sprawling voter fraud inquiry by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that many of those targeted were Democratic leaders and election volunteers, and that some were older residents. Gabriel Rosales, the director of the group’s Texas chapter, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. He called the raids “alarming” and said they were an effort to suppress Latino voters.In a statement last week, Mr. Paxton, a Republican, described the raids, carried out in counties near San Antonio and South Texas, as part of an “ongoing election integrity investigation” that began two years ago to look into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. His office has said that it will not comment on the investigation because it is still underway.That investigation is part of a unit, the election integrity unit, which was created as Republican-led states sought to crack down on supposed voter crime after former President Donald J. Trump began making false claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. Experts have found that voter fraud remains rare.For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens, instructing Latino residents stay engaged in politics.Christopher Lee for The New York Times“I’ve been involved in politics all of my life,” Ms. Martinez said.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Connecticut Official Loses to Jewish Opponent After Antisemitic Comments

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      In an interview posted online, Anabel Figueroa made comments that have been widely condemned as antisemitic. On Tuesday, she lost her Democratic primary to a Jewish challenger.A Connecticut state representative lost a primary election Tuesday, just hours after a video surfaced of her saying that her challenger should not represent the district because he is Jewish.The incumbent, Anabel Figueroa, a Democrat, made the comments in a late July interview posted to YouTube.“We cannot allow for a person of Jewish origin, of Jewish origin, to represent our community,” Ms. Figueroa said in Spanish. “It’s impossible.”Ms. Figueroa’s statement comes as Jewish Democrats across the country are contending with anxiety about antisemitism both within and outside their party. Democrats in Connecticut and beyond were quick to condemn Ms. Figueroa on Tuesday, and her opponent, Jonathan Jacobson, went on to win with a decisive 63 percent of the vote.Mr. Jacobson said that outrage at his opponent’s comments had probably helped cement his support, but that he credits his victory to their substantive policy differences over issues like abortion and affordable housing.“Ultimately, her hate, that’s not what lost her the election; her hate is not what won me the election,” Mr. Jacobson said. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Appeals Court Further Narrows Voting Rights Act’s Scope

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      Reversing decades of precedent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in a Texas case that different minority groups cannot jointly claim that their votes have been diluted.A federal appeals court further narrowed the scope of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that members of separate minority groups cannot join together to claim that a political map has been drawn to dilute their voting power.The 12-to-6 ruling on Thursday by the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned almost four decades of legal precedent, as well as an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel of the same appeals court. It applies only in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the three states where the court has jurisdiction, but the decision has national implications and may be appealed to the Supreme Court.The case involved districts for county commissioners in Galveston County, Texas, a community of about 350,000 people, where the last round of redistricting redrew a district in which Black and Hispanic voters together made up a majority of voters. The redrawn boundaries reduced their combined share of the district’s electorate to 38 percent, and a lawsuit claimed that doing so violated Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits drawing maps that dilute minority voting power.A lower court and the three-judge appellate panel both ruled that the new map was a clear violation of the law. But the full Fifth Circuit disagreed, saying that the law does not explicitly allow voters from more than one minority group to “combine forces” to claim their votes were diluted.The 12 judges in the majority were all appointed by Republican presidents. Five of the six dissenters were named by Democratic presidents. More

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      Carlos Espina is a One-Man Telemundo on TikTok

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      On a recent scorcher of a Houston afternoon, Carlos Eduardo Espina was driving to a restaurant that specializes in Nicaraguan and Puerto Rican food when he received a news alert on his iPhone: The former president of Honduras had been sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking.“Oh, I need to make a video, actually, in the car,” Mr. Espina, 25, said apologetically as he pulled his Honda crossover S.U.V. into the restaurant’s parking lot. He skimmed a Honduran newspaper’s Instagram post about the news and then opened TikTok, where he has 9.4 million followers. He turned the camera on himself while his girlfriend, who was sitting behind him, crouched out of the frame, clearly used to this sort of drill.His hazel eyes widened, and he boomed, “Importante noticia de última hora” — Spanish for “important breaking news” — then shared a one-minute recap. The video racked up more than 100,000 views during lunch, which Mr. Espina received for free because the restaurant owner was thrilled to recognize him from TikTok.Mr. Espina created TikTok content on his phone while dining at a Nicaraguan restaurant in Houston.Callaghan O’Hare for The New York TimesMr. Espina watching Mexico play Venezuela in the Copa América at a Venezuelan food truck in College Station, Texas. Mr. Espina, whose videos are mainly in Spanish, has flown under the radar in the national press.Callaghan O’Hare for The New York TimesMr. Espina, a recent law school graduate who lives in College Station, Texas, has become something of a one-man Telemundo for millions of Latinos in the United States and one of the White House’s favored social media personalities. He posts almost constantly, sharing earnest and personal news about immigration and the Latino community, along with videos about food, sports and politics — and often championing the Biden administration’s agenda.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What’s a ‘Black Job’? Trump’s Anti-Immigration Remarks Are Met With Derision

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      Former President Donald J. Trump claimed during the presidential debate on Thursday that immigrants entering the United States illegally were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs,” a claim with little basis that Democrats immediately seized on as evidence that Mr. Trump and Republicans were not serious about cultivating support from voters of color.It also touched off a host of internet jokes and memes over what, exactly, a “Black job” is.“They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, speaking of migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. He then repeated the reference during a campaign rally in Virginia on Friday, adding that Black Americans who have had jobs “for a long time” are losing employment to immigrants.Black political strategists, elected officials and heads of organizations quickly joined hundreds of social media users to post photos of themselves at their workplaces and to crack jokes about the reductive and racist nature of the former president’s comments.Among them was, Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic House delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who posted a photo on X alongside two women in her congressional office on Friday that was captioned, “Another day in Congress doing our ‘Black jobs.’”Malcolm Kenyatta, a Black Pennsylvania Democrat and surrogate for Mr. Biden’s campaign, quipped: “Did we ever figure out what a ‘Black job’ is? Asking for me.”And Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., also criticized Mr. Trump’s remarks, writing on X that Black Americans “are not confined to any one #BlackJob.”Republicans, who have sought to take advantage of President Biden’s softening support among Black voters, have made the issue of immigration a cornerstone of their appeals to the bloc, whose turnout in November could decide the election. Mr. Trump has said migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, and has repeatedly claimed that the migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are escapees from prisons and mental institutions, something the evidence does not support.Immigrants have made up an increasingly large portion of the American labor force in recent years, but economic experts say their presence has been healthy for the nation’s economy. And while Mr. Trump claims that migrant workers are taking jobs from American citizens, the population of foreign-born workers in the country is not large enough to offset the job creation of the last three years.Democrats have increasingly gone on the offensive. In a statement, Mr. Biden’s communications director Michael Tyler pointed to the online fray of responses to Mr. Trump’s comments, saying Black voters “dragged Trump throughout the night for his racist rant.”“They know Trump has done nothing for Black communities, so he tries to pit communities of color against one another as a distraction,” he said. “We aren’t distracted. We see Trump’s racism clearly, and it’s why Black voters will reject him this November.” More

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      Republican-Led States Push to Expand Power to Curb Immigration

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      Republicans’ latest efforts capitalize on the issue’s prominence in the 2024 election. But the fate of their proposals is still being litigated.Nearly a year since Texas adopted a law empowering state and local police officers to arrest undocumented migrants who cross into its territory, Republican lawmakers in at least 11 states have tried to adopt similar measures, capitalizing on the prominence of immigration in the 2024 presidential election.The fate of the proposals — six have been enacted or are under consideration, with Louisiana expected to sign its measure into law as early as next week — is still being litigated. In a case before a federal appeals court, Texas is defending its law by arguing that illegal immigration is a form of invasion, allowing it to expand its power to protect its borders. Federal courts have previously ruled that, from a constitutional perspective, the definition of the term invasion is limited to military attacks.States have tested the limits of their power over immigration before, but lawyers and legal scholars said the push this year was accompanied by what had amounted to a public-relations campaign.In campaign speeches, political ads and the halls of Congress, more Republicans are echoing former President Donald J. Trump by arguing that the rise of migration at the southern border is an “invasion.” President Biden, under pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to tackle the issues at the border, signed an executive order this month to curb asylum, and he could have more actions coming next week.The measure expected to be signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, Republican of Louisiana, includes provisions allowing Mr. Landry and his attorney general to establish a compact with Texas to address border security. Mr. Landry has already met with Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican of Texas, and dispatched Army National Guard soldiers from Louisiana to Texas’ border with Mexico.Valarie Hodges, the state senator in Louisiana who wrote the legislation, joined other Republicans in calling Mr. Biden’s recent action “too little, too late,” saying in an interview that state measures like hers were essential because the Biden administration had failed to enforce immigration laws.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Robert F. Kennedy Jr. le va bien con los latinos en las encuestas

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      Los analistas atribuyen la fuerza del candidato independiente al notable reconocimiento de su apellido y a la frustración con los dos principales contendientes.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Cuando Joe Biden y Donald Trump se enfrentaron en las elecciones presidenciales de 2020, Alexis Figueroa, trabajador de un hospital de Phoenix, afirmó que habría votado por Biden, porque parecía el menos controversial de los dos candidatos.Pero ahora que esos dos hombres están de nuevo en la papeleta en noviembre, Figueroa está considerando una tercera opción: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Figueroa, que ahora tiene 20 años, dijo sobre Kennedy: “Va a por los que acaban de empezar a votar, la generación más joven a la que no se le escucha”, y añadió que no quería votar por Biden porque no creía que el presidente hubiera cumplido muchas de sus promesas.En una contienda en la que el entusiasmo por los dos principales contendientes es bajo, más votantes latinos como Figueroa se están inclinando hacia candidatos de terceros partidos, según muestran encuestas recientes. Para los encuestadores y los observadores políticos, Kennedy, que está presentando una candidatura presidencial independiente con pocas posibilidades, está obteniendo resultados sorpresivamente positivos entre los votantes hispanos en los estados indecisos, aunque hasta ahora solo está oficialmente en las papeletas de California, Utah, Míchigan, Oklahoma, Hawái y Delaware.Las encuestas muestran que Kennedy está llevándose apoyo que solía ser para Trump y Biden, pero cuando se trata de los latinos, quienes tienden a votar a los demócratas, podría suponer una mayor amenaza para Biden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Polling Surprisingly Well Among Latino Voters

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      When Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Donald J. Trump faced off in the 2020 presidential election, Alexis Figueroa, a hospital worker in Phoenix, would have voted for Mr. Biden, he said, because he seemed like the least controversial of the two candidates.But with those men back on the ballot in November, Mr. Figueroa is considering a third option: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.“He’s going after those who are new to voting, the younger generation not being heard,” Mr. Figueroa, now 20, said of Mr. Kennedy, adding that he did not want to vote for Mr. Biden because he did not believe that the president had fulfilled many of his promises.In a race in which enthusiasm for the top two contenders is low, more Latino voters like Mr. Figueroa are leaning toward third-party candidates, recent surveys show. Mr. Kennedy, who is running a long-shot independent presidential bid, is polling surprisingly well among Hispanic voters in battleground states, though so far he is officially on the ballot only in California, Utah, Michigan, Oklahoma, Hawaii and Delaware.Polls show Mr. Kennedy drawing support away from both the Trump and Biden campaigns, but when it comes to Latinos, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, he may pose a bigger threat to Mr. Biden.“It’s a trend we see over and over — in a forced choice between Trump and Biden, Biden does better than on a ballot where there are other options,” said David Byler, the chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights, a national polling firm that works in Arizona and Nevada. “For most of this election, his support has simply been softer than Trump’s.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More