The New York Times - 19.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 0 N A

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — Some
wore it proudly emblazoned
across their chest: Latinos for
Trump, though they would rarely
use the ethnic term to describe
themselves. A few forcefully em-
phasized that they were Hispanic,
wielding it as if were a badge that
proved they could not be racist,
even as they said racism was a
manufactured problem. For many,
their identity was something of an
afterthought.
President Trump came to New
Mexico Monday night for a rally
aimed at demonstrating his sup-
port among Hispanic voters, and
many did come to hear him — en-
thusiastically waiting for hours in
the blazing sun.
Some said they were political
loners among friends and family
who were ardent Democrats. Oth-
ers came from a long line of Re-
publican voters.
“We are American,” said
Martha Garcia, 65, who moved to
New Mexico from Southern Cali-
fornia two decades ago. She said
she voted for Mr. Trump in 2016
and agreed with much of his rhet-
oric about the need to curb immi-
gration.
“We didn’t cross the border, the
border crossed us,” she added,
echoing a refrain typically used by
immigrant rights activists who
support more liberal policies than
those of the Trump administra-
tion. But Ms. Garcia said she
would not support any changes
that would make it easier for peo-
ple to enter the country. “We need
to take care of the people who are
already here.”
In New Mexico, Hispanics
make up 47 percent of the popula-
tion — more than in any other
state in the country. (In California,
the figure is about 40 percent.) Mr.
Trump is deeply unpopular with
most Hispanics in New Mexico,
and those who do support him are
unlikely to have a decisive elector-
al effect there. But brown faces
were not hard to find at this week’s
rally, held in Rio Rancho, a suburb
of Albuquerque.
The Hispanic Trump support-
ers drawn to the event were not
single-issue voters. They said
they were pleased with the presi-
dent’s judicial appointments, es-
pecially judges who support curb-
ing access to abortion, and the Re-
publican Party’s stance on gun
rights. They praised Mr. Trump
for tax policy that they said had
put thousands of dollars in their
bank accounts.
Still, interviews with more than
a dozen Hispanic voters at the
rally, most of whom said they be-
longed to families that had been in
the United States for at least three
generations, revealed that their
support for the president was
most closely tied to his immigra-
tion policies, strictly limiting new
arrivals.
Most said they did not feel a
connection with recent immi-
grants or Central American mi-
grants currently stuck in Mexico
as they try to seek asylum in the
United States. Instead, they saw
them as foreigners who could not
assimilate.
Dee Chronis, 49, was born and
raised in New Mexico and identi-

fies as Hispanic; she recently took

a DNA test that showed her ances-

tors were largely from Spain, she

said. Her daughters, ages 13 and 9,

came with her to the rally, each

decked out in Trump 2020 mani-

cures.

She spoke about recent immi-

grants in stark terms. “They’re

not nice, they’re always angry,

they expect things,” she said. “I

don’t have a problem with them if

they come in and blend in, speak

our language.”

Mr. Trump began his presiden-

tial campaign deriding Mexicans

as rapists and criminals and has

made anti-immigrant rhetoric a

key part of his pitch to voters. But

for Hispanic supporters at the

rally, the overall takeaway from

that rhetoric — directed at people

who might look like them — is

clear: He is not talking about me.

And while Trump supporters

are clearly in the minority among

Hispanic voters, it would be a mis-

take to presume Hispanics uni-

versally condemn the president’s

language. Ms. Chronis and other

supporters said they believed Mr.

Trump’s rhetoric protected His-

panics like them because it em-

phasized their American national-

ity over their ancestry.

While the campaign has offi-

cially labeled its outreach effort

“Latinos for Trump,” all of those

interviewed eschewed the label

and instead identified as His-

panic, which emphasizes ties to

Spain and the Spanish language

instead of Latin America, and is a

term that is often more readily

embraced among conservatives.

When asked about the mass

shooting last month in El Paso,

when a white nationalist killed 22

people in the most deadly attack

targeting Latinos in modern

American history, most simply

shrugged. Several said they had

never heard of the shooter’s mani-

festo, which said the attack was “a

response to the Hispanic invasion

of Texas.”

Christine Sanchez, 51, said she

rarely talked politics with her

mother, a Democrat who is critical

of Mr. Trump. “But it’s not about

racism, not at all,” she said. “We

weren’t raised with thinking any

of that. Now, as soon as somebody

hears something they don’t agree

with, they say ‘racist.’ ”

Ms. Sanchez said she was

shocked when other parents at

her daughter’s school said they

were fearful after the El Paso

shooting.

“They felt like they were tar-

geted because they’re Hispanic

and I’m like, people, no way,” she

said. “You’re in Albuquerque or

Rio Rancho, and you were tar-

geted?”

This week, the Trump cam-

paign began a “Vamos to Victory”

tour to celebrate Hispanic Her-

itage Month. The tour was estab-

lished to commemorate the inde-

pendence dates of several Latin

American countries.

“There are a lot of people like

me here who are not liberal and

support everything the president

has done,” said Yolanda Castro,

56, as she edged her way toward

the front row.

But Ms. Castro is in the minor-

ity. “There is definitely a signifi-

cant number of Hispanic Trump

supporters, but nowhere near

enough for him to get the numbers

to flip the state,” said Gabriel

Sanchez, a pollster with Latino

Decisions and the executive direc-

tor of the University of New Mexi-

co’s Center for Social Policy.

Republicans have faced signifi-

cant losses in New Mexico, where

the president lost by eight per-

centage points in 2016. A Republi-

can presidential candidate has not

carried the state since 2004. Dem-

ocrats swept the midterms last

year and now control every state-

wide office, both chambers of the

legislature and the entire congres-

sional delegation.

“Trump destroyed the Republi-

can Party of New Mexico,” said

James Lester, 67, a self-described

lifelong Republican who joined in

an anti-Trump rally Monday night

near downtown Albuquerque.

Like many other residents of

the state, Mr. Lester counts His-

panics and Anglos among his an-

cestors. On Monday, he wore a red

T-shirt proclaiming “MAGA:

Mexicans Always Get Across.”

“It’s insulting for him to even step

foot in this state,” Mr. Lester said.

Still, the Trump campaign

seems set on courting Hispanics,

and both Democrats and Republi-

cans believe such voters could be

decisive in states like Arizona,

Florida and Texas. In 2016,

roughly 28 percent of Hispanic

voters cast their ballot for Mr.

Trump, according to exit inter-

views and the Pew Research Cen-

ter.

Before the president’s arrival,

Steve Cortes, a longtime Trump

supporter and CNN contributor,

warmed up the crowd inside the

Santa Ana Star Center by railing

against the news media, accusing

reporters of “smearing” the presi-

dent with their charges of racism.

People roared in approval. They

did so again after Mr. Trump

asked Mr. Cortes, “Who do you

like more, the country or the His-

panics?”

Outside the arena, many saw

the question as raising a false

choice about loyalties. Inside,

there was nothing but deafening

cheers for both men. Several at-

tendees interviewed after the

event shrugged off the exchange.

The waves of cheers came again

when the president claimed with-

out evidence that San Diego resi-

dents had “begged” him for a bor-

der wall. (No organized or docu-

mented request came from San

Diego, and the Republican mayor

there has opposed the wall.) In the

hours before the president’s

speech, many rally attendees

spoke with alarm about gang

members and drug dealers they

believed had newly taken root in

their neighborhoods. Even before

the president himself broached

the subject, the crowd began

chanting, “Build the wall!”

“It’s our culture under attack,

the American way of life,” said

Ralph Medina, 77, who has spent

the last three years traveling off

and on from his home in El Paso to

sell $20 Trump baseball caps at

rallies across the country. “I’ve

got family who was born over

there in Mexico, but I’m American

first. We’ve been here a long time.”

When asked if he saw any con-

nection between the president’s

rhetoric, racial divisiveness and

the shooting in his hometown, Mr.

Medina scoffed, calling it a

“frenzy made by the media.”

“It’s silly,” he added. “How do

you blame someone else for sick

people who have been raised on

video games?” (Mr. Trump and

his supporters have made similar

arguments, though there is no

proven link between violent video

games and mass shootings.)

Twenty years ago, Mr. Medina

said, he often traveled from El

Paso to Juárez, Mexico, for

“restaurants and clubs and race-

tracks.” Now, he said, he would not

think of crossing the border.

“El Paso has become a sanctu-

ary city and now we’ve got all

these people who don’t contribute,

but they use our school system

and they take our jobs,” he said,

though research has shown that

undocumented immigrants pay

billions in taxes and largely fill

low-wage jobs that American citi-

zens are unwilling to perform.

Like many other Hispanic sup-

porters, Charlie Gallegos, a 67-

year-old Army veteran, said he re-

sented that any kind of public ben-

efit was offered to people who are

living in the United States ille-

gally.

“We’re hard-working taxpay-

ers, we serve our country, we obey

the law,” said Mr. Gallegos, who

was standing in the winding line

to enter the rally with several

members of his extended family.

His brother and nephew, both vet-

erans, nodded in agreement. “We

deserve health care, not them.”

Asked how he could distinguish

between immigrants who entered

legally and those who did not, Mr.

Gallegos did not hesitate: “You

can see it in how they carry them-

selves.”

But, Mr. Gallegos continued, he

would support citizenship for

some of the roughly 11 million un-

documented immigrants already

in the country. “If they fit in, if they

are American, they can stay,” he

said.

As Mr. Gallegos and his family

patiently snaked through the

crowd, they passed vendors sell-

ing T-shirts. Some bore the slo-

gan: “Build the wall, deport them

all.”

Latinos Who Back President Because of Immigration, Not in Spite of It

Yolanda Castro, above, and at left, Charlie Gallegos, Ross Rome-

ro and Larry Gallegos on Monday at a rally for President Trump

in Rio Rancho, N.M. Mr. Trump is deeply unpopular with most

Hispanics in New Mexico, but many turned up to cheer him on.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADRIA MALCOLM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JENNIFER MEDINA

‘We didn’t cross the

border, the border

crossed us.’

Simon Romero contributed report-
ing from Albuquerque.

said.
More repercussions may come.
The charges relate only to the lat-
est victim, a 37-year-old who fled
the apartment after an encounter
last week with Mr. Buck. Local
supporters and the families of the
men who died said they were
thankful after the charges were
filed.
“That’s what we have been
pushing for, for the last two years
and 50-something days,” said
Hussain Turk, a civil rights lawyer
who represents one of the family
members. “We don’t want another
death. We don’t want another
overdose.”
The first victim, Gemmel
Moore, 26, died in July 2017 and
Timothy Dean, 55, died in Janu-
ary. The identity of the third has
not been released; he was re-
ferred to as “Joe Doe” in court doc-
uments.
Mr. Buck faces up to five years
and eight months in prison if he is
convicted of the current charges.
Court documents describe how
Mr. Buck would lure men to his
apartment and administer large
doses of narcotics to manipulate
his victims to participate in sex
acts.
Mr. Moore was found dead in
Mr. Buck’s apartment surrounded
by sex toys and 24 hypodermic
needles, according to court
records. In a wrongful-death law-

suit filed in February, LaTisha

Nixon, the mother of Mr. Moore,

claimed that Mr. Buck bought a

plane ticket for her son to travel

from Houston. After Mr. Moore ar-

rived in Los Angeles, Mr. Buck in-

jected him with crystal metham-

phetamine, according to the law-

suit. It was a drug Ms. Nixon said

her son had never used.

Families of the two men who

died in his apartment have ac-

cused Mr. Buck, who is white, of

preying upon black gay men. Ms.

Nixon said in the lawsuit that Mr.

Buck had a “well-documented his-

tory of isolating black men for

predatory sexual encounters.”

Crowds of protesters, too, have

gathered outside Mr. Buck’s home

this year to demand justice for the

men.

“We know that, with the arrest

of Ed Buck, that the life ex-

pectancy of black gay men in L.A.

County has substantially in-

creased,” Jasmyne Cannick, an

activist and spokeswoman for the

families of the victims, said on

Wednesday.

A lawyer for Mr. Buck, Seymour

I. Amster, could not be reached,

but he has previously denied that

Mr. Buck had any role in the two

deaths.

In the most recent case, “Joe

Doe” visited Mr. Buck’s apart-

ment at least two times. On Sept.

4, he sought medical attention af-

ter he was injected with metham-

phetamine. A week later he re-

turned to the apartment where,

the Los Angeles County District

Attorney’s Office said, Mr. Buck

again injected the 37-year-old

man with methamphetamine. He

then fled and called 911.

In West Hollywood, Mr. Buck

was a recognizable figure, a for-

mer model who became a fixture

in Los Angeles Democratic politi-

cal circles and who focused on ani-

mal rights. In 2007, he made an un-

successful bid for West Hollywood

City Council.

Before he arrived in California,

Mr. Buck rose to prominence in

Arizona in the 1980s. He was a Re-

publican then and led the Mecham

Recall Committee, an effort to re-

move the Republican governor,

Evan Mecham, from office. Mr.

Mecham was eventually im-

peached, accused of fraud and

perjury. Mr. Buck later became a

Democrat.

After five years of modeling in

Europe, Mr. Buck returned to Ari-

zona, broke and bored, according

to a 1987 column in The Arizona

Republic. He bought a business

from a friend that gave driver’s li-

cense information to insurance

companies and told the newspa-

per that he changed his last name

from Buckmelter to Buck. Mr.

Buck bought his friend out of the

business for $250,000 and then

sold it in 1986 for a significant prof-

it, he told the newspaper.

After his move to California, he

drew attention in West Hollywood

as part of a group that success-

fully campaigned against a plan to

build affordable housing units in a

city-owned building.

Questions over Mr. Buck’s

source of wealth remain. In asking

a court to set Mr. Buck’s bond at $

million, prosecutors wrote that he

was not employed and argued that

if Mr. Buck does post bail, the

court should order him to show

that he did not secure any of the

bond money illegally.

“He has no known source of in-

come,” court documents said. “Yet

he is able to fund his lifestyle of

preying on vulnerable men. He is

engaged in frequent narcotics ac-

tivity, and he may be funding his

lifestyle with narcotics traffick-

ing.”

Mr. Buck was not a major Dem-

ocratic donor but he handed out

tens of thousands of dollars to Cal-

ifornia Democrats, including Rep-

resentatives Ted Lieu, Adam B.

Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Jerry McNer-

ney and Jimmy Gomez. One recip-

ient of larger gifts was Kyrsten

Sinema, a congresswoman at the

time who is now an Arizona sena-

tor. Mr. Buck also made contribu-

tions to the Democratic Congres-

sional Campaign Committee in

2016, and to both Hillary Clinton

and Barack Obama.

Politicians eventually began to

distance themselves from Mr.

Buck. The campaign committee

told Fox News in January that it

had donated Mr. Buck’s contribu-

tions to the NALEO Educational

Fund, a national bipartisan Latino

group. Mr. Lieu said he would do-

nate $18,000 in contributions from

Mr. Buck to civil rights organiza-

tions. Ms. Sinema gave away her

donations, too.

Douglas Wingate, a lawyer, said

he met Mr. Buck in Paris when

both men were in their 20s and Mr.

Buck was working as a model. Mr.

Buck owned golden retriever res-

cue dogs, Mr. Wingate said, and

had pushed the West Hollywood

City Council to ban the sale of fur

clothes in 2011.

“He lives a very unextravagant

lifestyle,” Mr. Wingate said. “He

doesn’t like to dine out at fancy

places, he doesn’t like to travel. He

likes to play with his dogs.” He be-

lieved that Mr. Buck was not rich.

“I read stories about money he

gave away that I didn’t think he

ever came close to having,” Mr.

Wingate said.

Still, Mr. Buck was often seen at

political events for the Stonewall

Democratic Club of Los Angeles,

where he was a member. When he

ran for City Council, he drew dona-

tions from actors, models, law-

yers, writers and at least one tele-

vision executive, according to dis-

closure forms filed with the city of

West Hollywood in 2007 and 2008.

Lester Aponte, the president of

the club, said he was surprised to

hear that Mr. Buck was a gener-

ous political donor. “His car was a

wreck,” he said. “It was constantly

in the shop and leaving him

stranded. I didn’t understand how

he could give thousands of dollars

to candidates for Congress and

not have a car that worked.”

Steve Martin, a lawyer and for-

mer West Hollywood mayor, said

he was struck by Mr. Buck’s ag-

gressive and often abrasive ap-

proach. He recalled that when

they were campaigning, Mr. Buck

once interrogated every dog

walker about the dogs’ diets and

leashes and would criticize the

owners for not caring adequately

for their pets.

“I told him, ‘We’re trying to

work for a cause, we’re not trying

to fight with people about their

dog care,’ ” Mr. Martin said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Buck’s usu-

ally quiet block in West Holly-

wood, the storied gay enclave in

Los Angeles, was crowded with

too-familiar sirens and camera

crews. The city — within the

sprawl of Los Angeles but with its

own municipal government — is

better known for its vibrant night

life.

Startled neighbors on Wednes-

day zigzagged around reporters

as they walked their dogs or got in

their cars to head to work.

Mr. Martin, the former mayor

who described himself as gay and

part Latino, said the deaths have

shined a light on an uglier side of

West Hollywood.

“These are things that the gay

community doesn’t talk about,” he

said, “and certainly that West Hol-

lywood doesn’t talk about.”

Activist Arrested in Rash of Overdoses

From Page A

A figure accused of

using drugs to prey on

vulnerable men.

News cameras at the apartment complex in West Hollywood,

Calif., where the Democratic donor and activist Ed Buck lived.

JENNA SCHOENEFELD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jose A. Del Real reported from
West Hollywood, and Laura M.
Holson from New York. Reporting
was contributed by Arit John from
Los Angeles, Daniel Victor from
Hong Kong, and Nicholas Bogel-
Burroughs, Shane Goldmacher
and Mihir Zaveri from New York.