Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments about Mexicans have sparked critical responses from TV commentators and Mexican officials alike. But fellow 2016 contenders with ties to the Hispanic community have been conspicuously silent. Former Gov. Jeb Bush (whose wife is Mexican) and Cuban-American Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did not respond immediately.
At his June 16 announcement, Trump said, “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Trump was widely criticized for his comments, but not by Bush, Rubio or Cruz. Felix Sanchez, head of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, criticized the candidates on CNN’s “New Day.”
“Why didn’t Jeb Bush, whose wife is Mexican and whose children are Mexican-American, be livid about this and come out swinging immediately?” Sanchez asked. “Why didn’t [Marco] Rubio and [Ted] Cruz look at this and say ‘We’re Cuban but this is a Mexican-American community, let’s align with the Mexican-American community…and go after this issue?”
But Sanchez did not attack only Republicans.
“Why didn’t Hillary Clinton be stronger on this?” he asked. “Where was Bernie Sanders on this issue? Across the board, the people who could have spoken didn’t.”
Co-host Chris Cuomo responded that candidates might have been silent because they do not want to take Trump’s campaign seriously. But as several television networks dumped Trump over his remarks, a few candidates finally addressed the issue.
Only after Univision broke ties with Trump on June 25 did Clinton respond to Trump’s comments, with a Twitter statement in Spanish.
Today, Cruz finally spoke up on “Fox and Friends,” a day after NBC fired “The Apprentice” star.
Cruz acknowledged that most Mexican immigrants are not how Trump portrayed them. Yet he credits Trump for focusing on illegal immigration.
“I don’t think he should apologize for speaking out against the problem that is illegal immigration,” Cruz said. “We are also a nation of immigrants and we should celebrate legal immigrants.”
Rubio and Bush have not publicly responded to Trump’s remarks.
Despite controversy over Trump’s comments, the billionaire continues to poll well. The Huffington Post, combining results from nine national polls, finds Trump at 11 percent support, one point behind frontrunner Bush and one ahead of Ben Carson and Rubio.
Emily Leayman is an intern at the Washington Examiner
