Meet the Mexican-Americans who agree with Trump on immigration
During the lead up to the 2016 election, much emphasis has been placed on the growing number of Latino voters, their presumed distaste for Donald Trump and what that might mean for the Republican party.
Most people who have heard the real estate mogul's controversial campaign rhetoric or visited his fiery Twitter feed simply assume that the Latino voting block has been deeply offended and opposes Trump's tough stance on immigration. And while that may be true of the majority of Latino voters, the group is not a monolith -- there is a vocal minority of Mexican-Americans along the U.S. border who passionately agree with Trump.
Take, for example, Tony Castañeda -- a third generation Mexican-American and former police chief in Eagle Pass, Texas -- who is vehemently against full amnesty for illegal immigrants.
"A lot of my relatives are still waiting in line on the Mexican side... They're paying their fees. They're submitting their paperwork. They're waiting their period of time," Castañeda explains. "Relatives of mine have been on the line for 15 years, trying to get across, trying to get their status. And some people just come in the middle of the night, and then want to live and hide and benefit from a lot of things we have in this country, taking it away from American citizens."
Miriam Cepeda, a Mexican-American graduate student studying history at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, agrees.
"In the late '50s, my father, my grandfather and my grandmother, they came to America," Cepeda explains. "My grandfather applied for a resident citizenship here, and since then, they've used the opportunities available to them here in America, and have advanced in whatever path life has led them. But they did it legally. They did it legally."
In the CBSN Originals documentary, "Neustro Amigo: Latinos for Trump," CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano sits down with a handful of Mexican-Americans in Texas border towns who echo this sentiment that that they have played by the rules, so others should be made to as well.
Frank Santos -- a first generation Mexican-American who came to the U.S. legally in childhood -- tells Quijano that he doesn't "believe in [immigrating] illegally or anything like that."
Santos lived here for three decades before deciding to become a citizen in 2012 so he could vote. "People that are here illegal, I have compassion for them if they are here five years. After five years, if you haven't done [anything] to try to be here legally, you're never gonna do it," he said.
And for many Mexican-Americans who feel they've followed the rules and achieved the American dream the "right way," that is simply unacceptable.
"I have a Social Security card. You have a Social Security card," Castañeda said, as he stood on a bluff overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border. "I have to pay IRS taxes when I'm due, and these people are not paying any of those. They are taking advantage of several programs that are out there, so there has to be some type of control because it's bleeding us. it's bleeding us left and right. And, I mean, we can't go into Mexico and live there forever. They have their own rules, their own laws that people need to comply with. And we would like for their folks to also comply with ours."
