Miami Dade County has for too long been a place where money means political influence and this can be seen in the daily lives of people who make up this vibrant community. Developers have pushed out working class people as traditional Miami neighborhoods gentrify and rising rent prices make the cost of living unaffordable. It is no wonder that voter apathy in the county is prevalent in a community where most residents don’t see their elected officials working for them.

A few months ago a coalition of progressive organizations in South Florida organized a titanic grassroots effort to dismantle this quid pro quo system of politics that has become the norm in Miami-Dade. Community members and activists collected more than 127,000 petitions, more than half required to put a question on the November ballot, to reform campaign financing in Dade County.

Unfortunately, the County Commission has set every bureaucratic roadblock possible in what seems to be an effort to derail this initiative calling for greater transparency and accountability in Dade County.
This election year, we have seen high-profile calls for more accountability in the way money influences politics. Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made this one of his flagship campaign issues. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has promised to push a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court ruling which allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.

In Southern Florida, thousands of voters are taking these appeals to curb money in politics to heart. But it is disturbing to see how elected officials are trying to silence them in response.

The language of the Miami-Dade initiative would ban contributions by county contractors and close loopholes used by lobbyists to circumvent campaign contribution laws. The current limit for campaign contributions stands at $1000, which benefits donors with deep pockets. The petition called for a cap of $250 as well as updating the small donor fund matching program to give working class folks more ability to take part in donating to candidates.

The efforts of the advocacy groups pushing the petition drive were derailed earlier this month when the commissioners did not authorize the validity of the signatures, even though the advocates followed the law. The commissioners had schedule a special meeting to approve the signatures, but could not reach a quorum when a commissioner did not attend because of a medical issue. The county is stymieing efforts to find out what happened behind the scenes before the vote by attempting to charge $22,000 for public records of correspondence among local elected officials related to the vote.

Three weeks of intense media and community pressure followed the vote, including a protest by about 200 community members at the County Commissioners’ and Mayor’s Offices, which forced them to hold another meeting. The commissioners voted to allow the petitions to be counted. Because of all the delays by local leaders, we missed the deadline for a question on reforming campaign finance to appear on the Aug. 30th ballot. So now we are pushing for the question to appear in the November ballot. The commissioners, though, are claiming that the legal language in the initiative is “deficient” and the county attorney’s office will sue to stop the initiative from getting on the ballot.

More than 127,000 voters of Miami Dade County signed this petition demanding a say in how the political process is carried out. These folks are tired of a system that they feel has failed to represent them and instead has sold out to big money interests. In a city where the price of living has working class people being pushed out, it’s hardly difficult to see why. Which is why I watched with frustration as the County Commissioners debated the rightness of the issue and complained about their vacations being cut short. I know that campaign finance reform in Dade County faces an uphill battle, but I’m optimistic because the campaign has proved that there is popular will for these reforms. Voters are ready to turn up the pressure in order to achieve these goals.

Most of the Miami Dade County Commissioners are painfully out of touch with working class folks. I suspect many have expressed their opposition with the initiative because they don’t want to lose the campaign contributions from their donors who in turn don’t want to lose the influence that comes from those contributions. The commissioners, however, would be wise to remember that 127,000 thousand voters is more than the voter turnout in most of their district elections. So the next time they are called to serve the people they were elected to represent, they should answer.

Photo credits to Sean McMenemy.

Originally published on the Huffington Post. 

Back in 2000, George W. Bush won Florida by a mere 537 votes, propelling him to victory over Al Gore and effectively making him the 43rd president of the United States. Although for years there have been questions of fraud regarding the recount of those votes and debate over the Supreme Court decision that gave Bush the presidency, there’s a deeper story that could have prevented that whole fiasco. That year, more than 12,000 eligible voters were purged from the rolls.

The scheme to suppress voters went like this: Former Republican Florida Governor Jeb Bush (George W Bush’s brother) ordered his Secretary of State to purge the voter lists, effectively disenfranchising thousands of registered voters who are mostly Black and Hispanic Democrats. Three presidential elections later, this is a recurring scenario that threatens to suppress the votes of more people of color in Florida. If we don’t heed the warnings of the past, the foundation that built our democracy – our right to vote freely for leaders who represent us – will continue to be undermined.

Florida is a key battleground state. Every time elections roll around, this becomes all too apparent. Yard signs, canvassers, and election ads pop up across the state, especially in the urban epicenters. This year’s elections are no different.

With Election Day three months away, the lessons of the Bush-Gore election should be on the mind of all Floridians who care about free and fair elections. Donald Trump’s erratic campaign has affected down ballot races as well and we are seeing previously GOP races that were deemed uncompetitive for Democrats now within striking distance. Senator Marco Rubio’s opponent Patrick Murphy has narrowed the gap in polls with the most recent numbers showing him 5 points behind Rubio. Many pundits have attributed Rubio’s support of Trump, who he recently called a con man yet still supported him, as the main reason for his recent slump.

It is obvious to anyone who pays attention to the electoral process that not only do Republicans benefit when minority voter turnout is low, they actively suppress those voters and have even admitted to doing so in the past. Floridians are all too familiar with chaotic elections, plagued by long voting lines, reduced early voting hours, massive voter purges and strict voter registration restrictions. GOP officials such as former Governor Charlie Crist and former GOP chairman Jim Greer, among others, admitted publicly that current Florida Governor Rick Scott deliberately imposed these hardships on voters to suppress Democratic voters and specifically minorities.

People have a higher chance of being struck by lightning than committing voter fraud, yet Scott has used that as an excuse to implement draconian voter restrictions for years. Most significant was the decision by Scott more than two years ago to disenfranchise more than 1.3 million Floridians convicted of a felony who have served their time by denying them the ability to restore their voting rights. Florida is a national embarrassment in this department, with one out of three African American men being unable to vote.

Scott claims that his harsh measures to deny voting rights to returning citizens are meant to keep people from ending back in prison. Yet former incarcerated people wait years, sometimes decades, for their rights to be restored and more often than not their requests go unanswered by an inefficient bureaucracy.

People of color have born the unfair burden of these efforts by Scott’s administration to suppress vote. Eighty percent of the voters unjustly purged by the state of Florida in 2012 were people of color.

Voter registration efforts in Florida have also been targeted by Scott and the GOP in an effort to suppress new Democratic voters. In 2011, the Republican legislature passed a law which required voter registration agents to turn in their voter registration forms to the state board of elections within 48 hours or face a $1,000 fine and possible criminal consequences. Although the law was eventually overturned in 2012 by a federal judge, voter registration efforts in the state by groups such as the League of Women Voters and others were undermined.

As November 8 draws nearer, it would be wise to remember the racist history of voter suppression in the state of Florida. As Floridians, we can’t forget that we have a sitting governor who has actively promoted racist voter suppression tactics in the hopes of achieving electoral victories for Republicans, not only in the Presidential elections, but down the ballot as well. We also can’t forget that the Scott administration has been extremely supportive of Donald Trump’s increasingly bizarre bid for the White House (Scott wrote an op-ed titled “Donald Trump has America’s pulse.”) We must be on our guard not to allow the governor and his allies to continue to employ the kind of tactics to suppress votes that have made Florida a national embarrassment. We would be wise to not let our guard down and take victory for granted.

I remember the frustration I felt in the summer of 2009 as I applied to college. As an undocumented student, fresh out of high school, the nature of my status prevented me from being accepted to most higher education institutions. In that vulnerable moment for me, it was Miami Dade College that opened its doors and accepted me as a student. I had to pay expensive out of state tuition rates, but being accepted allowed me to at least take a couple of classes a semester.

More than six years later, I am finishing my degree at Florida International University, another inclusive institution which was one of the first to adopt in-state tuition for undocumented students. These two schools have been pillars of the south Florida community when it comes to embracing undocumented and low income students. TheTrail of Dreams, a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington D.C. in support of the 2010 Dream Act, was conceived in the halls of Miami Dade College.

So it is sad and unfortunate that this record of inclusion from these schools has been tarnished by institutional leaders who embrace Donald Trump and are providing financial and logistical support for his campaign of bigotry and hate.

When the former chair of the board of trustees at Miami Dade College,Helen Aguirre Ferre became the Hispanic Outreach Director for the Republican National Committee during an election in which the party’s candidate has shown himself to be anti-immigrant, Ferre sold out the Hispanic community in which she has worked and thrived, as well as the student population of the College, where 88% of students are people of color, the highest percentage of any college or university in the U.S.

Ferre’s job now is to spin Trump’s racism in order to make him palatable to Latino voters. But don’t be fooled.

Ferre, a Republican media personality, supported Mitt Romney’spresidential campaign when he proposed making the life of immigrants in this country so difficult that they would have to “self-deport.” She has used her television talk show “Issues with Helen Ferre” to demonize and belittle the immigrant community. Once, my own mother, who is undocumented, called in to the show and Ferre dismissively put her on mute, telling her to stop complaining since at least she had a roof over her head.

I would have dismissed any of this as the typical Republican antics that are too common in Miami-Dade County but Ferre’s new role asHispanic Outreach director for the Republican National Committee is a new low. Here is someone who has always sold herself as a conservative ally of the immigrant community and says she supports DREAMers, yet now embraces a candidate who wants to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and ban Muslims from coming into the United States.

Thankfully, a media campaign spearheaded by a number of South Florida pro-immigrant groups pushed Ferre to step down from the chairmanship of the board.

Modesto Maidique, the former president of Florida International University, has similarly let down immigrant students. Maidique hosted a fundraiser at $50,000 a plate for the candidate on July 26th in which Trump’s Florida surrogates, such as Gov. Rick Scott, Pepe Fanjul Sr, and Rep. Carlos Trujillo were present. Seventy percent of the students at my school are Latino. Should our main campus really be named after a man who supports a candidate for president who is a bigot, says disparaging things about Hispanics and other minorities and would push policies who would adversely affect a majority of its students?

Modesto Maidique has undeniably done good work for the university, and this is not an attempt to deny that, but this does not mean that he gets a blank moral check when he supports a presidential candidate who spews such hatefulness against immigrants, women and people of color. Maidique’s lack of good judgement smears the university and is offensive to the student body and faculty who hold up the school’s name with pride. Frankly, as a student, I want the university to distance itself from anyone who actively enables division and hatred within our communities.

It is discouraging and depressing that two prominent actors in the field of education, who have been part of institutions that have contributed so much to the advancement of the Hispanic community in South Florida, are now spokespeople and advocates of a populist demagogue who is racist, ignorant and vulgar. To be clear, as private citizens Helen Aguirre Ferre and Modesto Maidique have the right to back whichever candidate they choose. This is a founding principal of our democracy. Yet we, as members of the community who would suffer the breakup of our families and other painful consequences of a Trump presidency, must stand against those who enable this threat to our well-being and make excuses for hate.

Never in the history of this country has a candidate known less or been less prepared to be president of the United States. The irresponsibility, lack of political courage and bad judgement by Helene Aguirre Ferre and Modesto Maidique deserves condemnation.

I remember watching then Senator Barack Obama speak at a campaign rally during a hot and sunny afternoon in 2007. At the time, I was an undocumented student fresh out of high school and uncertain as to where I would be accepted to college due to my status.

I grew up during the eight years of what I’d say was the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, so I was impressed by Obama’s delivery and demeanor. But I was particularly struck by his message, a call for change and hope that spoke to me at a time when I felt very vulnerable and insecure about my future.

Now at the end of his second term as president, I watched Obama speak again. This time, I was on the floor of the Democratic National Convention and I marveled once again at the power of his delivery and demeanor. But this time, I was struck by how far we’ve come as a nation even as we face an uncertain future. In his last convention speech as president, Obama called this year an “unusual election” in which a dangerous demagogue is vying for the presidency. It is clear to me, as it is to the President, that the hard fought gains made during the Obama years, fought with sweat and tears by real people pushing politicians to do the right thing, will be lost if Donald Trump wins the election.

President Obama went through a laundry list of his accomplishments throughout his two terms, such as his passage of healthcare reform, reduction of unemployment, marriage equality, and the nuclear agreement with Iran, among other successes.

Yet to my eyes, the country is still struggling with a myriad of issues from income inequality to police violence and we seemingly remain as divided as ever.

As a formerly undocumented immigrant who gained legal status through marriage in 2011, I have felt so many conflicting emotions and opinions regarding the Obama presidency.

My initial feelings of awe during his campaign gave way to the realization that Obama would not be the savior who would grant my family the immigration relief we so badly needed. I remember standing under the hot sun in 2010, alongside my mother, holding signs that read “Obama Deporter-In-Chief” as record number of deportations were happening across the country.

But my views about Obama and his administration’s treatment of immigrants softened after his executive action to allow students in the U.S. to receive work permits and relief from deportation. I save much of my ire these days for Republicans, who have made it an art form to spew hateful rhetoric against immigrants. From Mitt Romney’s comments about making life so hard for immigrants that they would self-deport to lawsuits stopping the president’s actions that would have provided deportation relief to even more immigrants, it’s no wonder that the Republican xenophobia against immigrants has devolved now into building a massive wall along the southern border, forcibly deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants and banning Muslims from entering the United States.

At the same time, we have seen Democrats further embrace the immigrant community. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who supports comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, promises to consider some kind of immigration reform within the first 100 days of her presidency.

There are those within our community who claim the Democrats have used this issue as a political football to score Latino votes and there might be substance to their claim, but I’m not going to take any chances that allow a proto-fascist who openly says he wants to deport my parents and break up my family to be elected. There’s just too much at stake.

As Obama said Wednesday night, “Don’t boo. Vote.”

As I listened to the president speak, I considered the racist, obstructionist opposition he’s had to face while governing. I thought of the challenges – and successes – of our democracy as he said, “That’s who we are. That’s our birthright – the capacity to shape our own destiny. That’s what drove patriots to choose revolution over tyranny and our GIs to liberate a continent. It’s what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot, and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma, and workers to organize and fight for better wages. America has never been about what one person says he’ll do for us. It’s always been about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government.”

As his speech ended, I reflected on the eight years of his presidency. They’ve been painful and rewarding, frustrating and energizing. We’ve achieved so much, yet we have so far to go. But it is clear that in order to go further, we must go together.

While Democrats were for the most part united during the Democratic National Convention, there was no doubt that there were ripples of dissent. Standing on the upper levels of the Wells Fargo Center during the first night, impassioned Bernie Sanders supporters consistently booed every time Hillary Clinton was mentioned by one of her surrogates, the low point of the night coming when Elizabeth Warren took the stage. Her speech was overshadowed by angry shouts expressing feelings of betrayal which were not tempered until Bernie Sanders himself took the stage soon after.

Earlier in the day, a coalition of Democracy Spring and Sanders supporters had gathered at Marconi Park and walked several thousand strong down Broad Street, culminating in an effort to block the delegate entrance to the DNC leading to the arrest of 50 protesters after a showing of civil disobedience. These protesters were gathered to make a series of broad demands, from dealing with the influence of money in politics, to the ongoing deaths of people of color at the hands of police violence, to the perceived unfairness that the DNC email leaks exposed.

Demanding a More Progressive World

Although a recent PEW poll recently found that up to 90% of Bernie supporters will ultimately back Clinton, it is plain to see that the party has a problem in terms of outreach to its progressive and millennial base. Moumita Ahmed has been at the forefront of millennial involvement in the Sanders’ campaign, founding the massive social media network “Millennials for Bernie Sanders” and leading marches attended by thousands of supporters and celebrity advocates such as Rosario Dawson.
Moumita has come to Philadelphia as a delegate to try to push the DNC to adopt the most progressive platform possible. As a Muslim woman she acknowledges the dangers of a Trump presidency but stopped short of giving Hillary Clinton an endorsement.

“I feel like we have got to crush Trump no matter what, but movement building is our moral duty and I’ve done my part, what we need is a truly progressive movement to rebuild America.”
 Moumita Ahmed

A Feeling of Being Wronged

The resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chair of the DNC following a leak of emails that showed biased statements made during the primaries have calmed tensions somewhat in the convention. Sanders has endorsed Clinton’s candidacy and urged his supporters to vote for her. But Erika Andiola, who handled Latino Outreach for his campaign, expressed how young voters felt disenfranchised and disillusioned by the perception that they’ve been cheated by the DNC.
Andiola called for a more progressive vision to unite the base.

“The DNC should adopt a platform that will get young voters engaged, it’s not enough to tell people to vote because Trump is on the other side of the coin, and you actually have to empower voters to get
them on your side.”

 Erika Andiola

Dissent May Not Be Evidence of Disunity. But Is It A Path Forward?

Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, who attended both the Republican and Democratic conventions, said while there is dissent among Democrats, she said activists were ridiculed and even attacked at the GOP convention.

What was important to her was not necessarily the elections however but how activists organize and how to build movements and people power in order to reach voters who make choices out of ignorance and fear.

 Jodie Evans

One of the protesters who was arrested during the Democracy Spring sit-in was Andrea Perez from Miami, Florida. Andrea was a volunteer for the Sanders campaign and she also volunteered during President Obama’s campaigns. But she said Sanders represents the progressive movement like no candidate has before and she believes Sanders was not given a fair chance among rank and file party members.

Although she is an immigrant from Colombia and is aware of Donald Trump’s vehement anti-immigrant policies, she remains reluctant to support Clinton.

“I hate Donald Trump. My high school friend was deported back to Uruguay so I get the danger that our community feels if he gets the presidency, yet it’s very hard for me to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her record and it’s something that I will have to think about a lot until November.”

 Andrea Perez (r.) and a contingent of friends from Miami

A Heightened Sense of What’s At Stake

On Monday night, I reflected on the words of Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona who is firm Bernie Sanders supporter. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, he abstained from voting for the Democratic nominee and Richard Nixon ended up being elected to disastrous results to Americans and the people of Southeast Asia that suffered the intense bombing raids of the Vietnam War.

Rep. Grijalva called for unity behind a party that fought and represented progressive ideals.

It’s a cautionary tale for every person on the fence who knows that the stakes in these elections could not be any higher for communities of historical struggle. As the speeches roll on, we are seeing and hearing the vision of two Americas at display. Whoever wins will have an immense power to decide the path that our country takes moving forward. And there won’t be any looking back.

Standing on the floor of the Democratic National Convention was surreal. I am a formerly undocumented immigrant whose parents remain undocumented. And yet here, I was on the floor of a national political convention as it kicked off Monday. And unlike the Republican convention last week, I saw myself reflected in so many of the experiences of the people who spoke on stage.

The DNC had more diversity in its first hours than the RNC seemed to have in four days. It became apparent early in the night when mother and daughter Francisca and Karla Ortiz took the stage. Karla is an American citizen from Las Vegas, but her mom Francisca and her dad are undocumented and live in fear of deportation. Ortiz gave a moving speech in which she spoke about what it’s like living in fear that her parents might be taken from her and that she hopes to grow up to be a lawyer in the hope that one day she can help immigrant families have a brighter future. In her closing, Karla said, “I don’t feel brave every day. On most days I’m scared that at any moment my mom and my dad will be forced to leave, and I wonder what if I come home and find it empty?”

That moment spoke to me. I grew up undocumented. I know what it is like to live with the fear and anxiety as a child that at any moment you could be separated from your parents and feel the crushing weight of it on your shoulders.

Later in the night DREAMer and immigration activist Astrid Silva took the stage in front of a huge sign that read “NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL”, a common refrain in the immigrant community. Astrid spoke about her childhood experience living in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant and the fear of having her family broken apart as they tried to pursue what the dream of all Americans, a better life. Astrid is now 28 and has overcome adversity to become one of the leading voices in the immigrant community. She has shown that our community can and will overcome the odds stacked against them. She closed her speech by warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency and how important this election is in order to ensure that immigrant families like hers are protected.

It was so striking and empowering to see these Latino voices elevated in this convention, especially after hearing the battering that our community took last week in Cleveland.

The negativity, xenophobia and gloom that came out of Cleveland last week attempted to paint a dystopian society that blamed African Americans, immigrants and Muslims for violent crimes that threaten our way of life and security. It’s such a stark contrast to the message of hope and unity coming out of the DNC in Philadelphia, where the Democrats seemed determined to show the nation and the world that the United States is better than that. The convention is focused on sharing the stories of all Americans and leading with compassion and dignity in order to move our political discourse in the right direction.

The voices of community members were aided by the repeated calls to denounce the bigotry of the Republicans and the calls for inclusion and compassion by party members.

In one of the most passionate speeches of the night, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, of Illinois, denounced Donald Trump’s bigotry and spoke of how the example of hard work of his Puerto Rican parents gave him the foundation to pursue a seat in Congress. He reflected on how no one spoke up in defense of his parents when they faced discrimination and hatred.

“So you better believe I’m using my voice against the discrimination we hear today, I will raise my voice against a bigot who thinks a judge born in Indiana can’t do his job because his parents were born in Mexico. I will raise my voice against a bully who calls hardworking immigrants criminals and rapists, someone who promises to round up and deport families, millions of families, and then put up a wall behind them and us,” he said.

Rep. Gutierrez has been one of the strongest voices in favor of comprehensive immigration reform and hearing his voice on that stage is a breath of fresh air for Latinos horrified by the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has permeated the American electorate discourse.

The high point of the night was definitely Michelle Obama’s speech, in which she took down the Republican nominee without once mentioning his name. Instead, she showed why Democrats are the better alternative for all communities, especially those of color and those that are struggling.

She spoke about the difficulties of raising two daughters in the public eye and teaching her daughters “to go high” when your enemies “go low” with hateful language, such as extolling racist ideas or questioning their father’s citizenship and faith.

The absolute most touching part of the speech was when she reflected on how far we have come as a nation. “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters, two beautiful intelligent black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.” I, along with so many others in the great hall, was moved to tears.

It may seem simplistic, but it is true that hope beats anger any day and love trumps hate all the time. Mrs. Obama and the powerful speakers Monday night demonstrated that fact.

The first day ended on a buoyant note following a rocky start with the leak of the DNC emails and a protest by Bernie Sanders’ supporters. The anger of the Bernie delegates was palpable as they booed in several moments of the night, but as Monday night drew to a close, there was a feeling of unity and focus in the convention. With each story of real Americans, we all understood that we have a goal this November to defeat fear, hate and xenophobia, but that we can only do it as a united front that embraces our diversity and leads with hope and compassion.

Photo credits to Amanda via Flickr Creative Commons.

Originally published on The Huffington Post. 

A friend of mine recalls going outside of her office in South Miami one morning only to encounter a Thanksgiving turkey give-away hosted by the group Libre Initiative, which was handing out the holiday staple to members of the community. It is one of the many times around Miami that the Libre Initiative hosted events and community works providing civic and history lessons, driving lessons, citizenship clinics, and food giveaways like the one I described, not only in South Florida but in other states where Hispanic populations are prominent.

At first glance, their works seems like standard efforts in any community outreach project. But lift the veil, even a little, and the reality is that the Libre Initiative is a Republican-funded project with the goal of winning the hearts and minds of Latino voters.

Despite divisive rhetoric against Latino immigrants from many in the Republican party, including most hatefully from their presidential candidate, it is clear that some Republicans can do the math and add up the increasing role Latinos will play in this nation’s elections. Hispanic millennials will make up almost half (44%) of the record 27.3 million eligible Latino voters projected for this year’s election, more than any other racial or ethnic group of voters.

One of the speakers of this week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland is Libre’s national spokeswoman Rachel Campos Duffy, where she will no doubt talk about economic empowerment in the Latino community through Republican ideals.

Yet we must never forget that Libre is a wolf in sheep’s clothing to the Latino community. Despite its outwardly good works, Libre exists to influence Latinos to go against their own interests.

Latinos who find themselves at Libre events might be subjected to a wide range of conservative talking points. They may be told that an increase in minimum wage would result in businesses hurting. They will hear opposition to Obamacare on the charge that it is unconstitutional. And they will be given arguments that President Obama’s DAPA/DACA executive actions which would have provided relief for millions of undocumented immigrants in this country should be repealed and opposed.

Republican fingerprints are all over the Libre Initiative, starting with its executive Director Daniel Garza who is a former Bush administration official. Libre officials claim that they don’t support candidates, only ideas and that their focus is on explaining conservative views, yet they have served the role of unofficial spokespeople for the Republican Party agenda consistently.

When one follows the money Libre receives, it is not surprising that they regurgitate these right wing talking points in order to confuse and suppress Latinos from voting for their best interests. Since its inception in 2011, the Libre Initiative has received more than $10 million dollars from Freedom Partners, which is a group backed and funded by the Koch Brothers, billionaire Republican funders with deep pockets. The link between Libre and the Koch brother’s was so strong that in Nevada, Libre initially shared an office with Koch funded Americans for Prosperity before moving in an effort to distance themselves from AFP. The money that the Koch’s invest in Libre give them control over the organization and this is apparent when one sees the organizational structure of Libre which is organized as a trust with Daniel Garza as chief trustee, a position from which he can be removed.

Thanks to the financial backing by the Koch’ brothers, Libre has expanded operations to states including Nevada, Texas and Florida, in which Hispanic voters will play a crucial role in deciding the outcome of the 2016 elections.

It’s hard to understand how Daniel Garza, the son of a Mexican migrant worker, would choose to confuse the Latino immigrant community into voting against their interests. Here in South Florida, Libre targeted former U.S Congressman Joe Garcia in ads that misconstrued comments he made by making him seem as if he was in support of communism, a charge that was blatantly untrue. Congressman Garcia has been an ally of the immigrant community and sponsored a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, making it ironic that Libre sought toundermine his efforts as they hypocritically opposed Obama’s DAPA/DACA executive actions on the basis that he should have worked with the legislature to pass immigration reform. This is pure nonsense as Republican backers riled up and funded the very opposition that makes a legislative solution to the immigration problem in this country impossible.

It has been amusing, though, to watch Donald Trump single handedly destroy the efforts of the Libre Initiative to confuse and divide Latino voters. The Republican mainstream was not expecting their nominee to engage in hateful rhetoric that would include forcibly deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants from this country and building a wall across the Mexican border that Mexico would pay for. It must be frustrating for Libre officials and their backers to see polls showing Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 40 points among Hispanics. But for a group that’s been trying to fool Latinos with free turkeys and other give-aways, I call it something else: Poetic justice.

The United States claims to be a nation founded on family values with working families often cited as the engine that moves us forward. In an increasingly competitive labor force in which time is a luxury, families often depend on domestic workers to take care of their children and their homes. It’s shameful therefore that the very people who provide the services that allow the very foundation of our society to thrive are treated close to the equivalent of modern day slavery.

When the labor code that set regulations protecting workers in this country was created in 1938, the vast majority of domestic workers at the time were African American and were excluded for racist reasons from labor protections. Today, domestic workers are mostly comprised of immigrants and a large portion are undocumented, leaving them vulnerable to mistreatment by employers since they are not required to sign a contract and are not guaranteed even minimum wage salaries.

There are 95,000 domestic workers in South Florida, around 80% of them are women and around 65% are undocumented. My mother is one of them. Although she has been lucky because she’s had a kind boss, she also worries knowing that her employment is not guaranteed. Like thousands of other undocumented workers across this country, my mom lacks social security or any other type of retirement fund. She has never had health insurance, leaving her vulnerable to economic ruin in the face of serious illness.

Here in South Florida, a group of domestic workers have decided that enough is enough and are organizing alongside organizations such as Miami Workers Center and the National Domestic Workers Alliance to demand dignity, respect and labor protection.

Marcia Olivo and Karla de Anda are representatives of the Miami Workers Center and are organizing the first domestic worker’s assembly with the goal of gathering between 200 to 300 workers. The idea behind the assembly is for these workers to meet, empower themselves and form a strategy to mobilize other domestic workers.

Carla Hansasck is one of the domestic workers participating in the assembly and her experiences illustrate why this industry is in desperate need of more oversight. Carla works up to 16 hours daily on weekends yet never sees a dime of overtime pay. She endures small and big indignities, such as having to eat a family’s reheated leftovers because they did not allow her to cook or bring food from home for herself. At another home where Carla worked for three months, she was paid half of her promised income and when she demanded the rest, her employer fired her.

Working within the walls of someone else’s home leaves a domestic worker vulnerable without the lack of basic labor protections, and many end up being severely underpaid. Yaquelin Mela Lopez worked three years as a nanny, working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and earning about $15 dollars a day. She’s also worked cleaning vacation homes, working long hours and receiving no overtime. Yaquelin says the upcoming assembly is an opportunity to bring domestic workers out of the shadows and unite to demand that the work they do be valued and protected.

The Miami-Dade County Commission recently approved a resolution declaring June 7th as a day of recognition for domestic workers. Although a clear step in the right direction, it is unfortunately nowhere near the solution needed to protect this part of the labor force. It is time for Florida to step up and join states such as New York, California, Illinois, Hawaii and others in passing a bill of rights to protect domestic workers and regulate this crucial industry. We let domestic workers into our homes to take care of our families, they should be treated with the respect and dignity that they rightfully earn every day at work.

Millions of hardworking families across this country have been anxiously waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Obama’s plan to provide deportation relief to undocumented immigrants in this country.

On Thursday, with one simple sentence, the justices crushed the hopes and dreams of those families: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court.” The 4-4 decision by the court means that the lawsuit blocking the president’s order, known as DAPA and DACA+, stands and that immigrants who had invested more than a year to this fight in the hopes of coming out of the shadows and living a normal life without fear will once again live with uncertainty.

This is particularly painful for me, as my parents live in this country without papers and would have benefitted from Obama’s executive action. When DAPA was signed back in November 2014, my parents quickly gathered all the necessary documents for the application process and organized them into neat folders. I remember their excitement, after years of waiting for comprehensive immigration reform and a couple of close brushes with it happening in 2007 and 2013, the DAPA/DACA executive actions were hard fought victories for our community. My father was particularly hopeful, as he was suffering from a severe form of arthritis on his hip joints that made walking extremely difficult and painful for him and he was unable to get the healthcare he needed because of his status. He hoped thought that through DAPA he would finally be able to get the treatment he desperately needed.

It was heartbreaking for me to see my mom cry all morning when the court’s decision was announced. I felt helpless in telling her that things would be O.K. My mother has always been my source of inspiration. I became an activist because of her. I grew up watching my mom take control of her life and narrative while coming out of the shadows. It left an indelible impression on me. And now I’m in this fight, not only for her, but for the hundreds of good hard-working people I’ve met. Thursday morning did not dent my mom’s resolve and as always, her strength emboldened me. My mom told me that although this was a severe setback, she would not give up and that our movement would need to mobilize like never before to defeat the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has permeated the presidential race.

I watched Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan that morning claim that “This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers,” even though the split decision sets no national precedent as to whether the president acted within the law when he announced his executive order in 2014. The juxtaposition of watching Republicans celebrating this painful setback for millions of families and perpetuating the anti-immigrant policies that led them to nominate a racist bigot to the presidency, while at the same time watching the pain felt by members of my community made one thing clear for me, the November elections are more important now than ever.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Scalia has left an open seat in the court and rumors of possible retirement of other members make the presidential election a crucial one. We have a chance to change the makeup of a court with a conservative majority that unable to make the right judicial decisions to better American society. As the immigration ruling has shown our movement, we cannot surrender the Supreme Court nominating power to a xenophobic bigot that wants to forcefully deport 11 million immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the country.

We have a moral obligation to our families and our communities to vote so we can have a say in the policies that so clearly affect our loved ones.

Moving forward, I think of what my mom told me the morning of the ruling, “We move forward and continue the fight because we know that we stand on the right side of history.” Our movement is unstoppable because we no longer live in fear and we are willing to fight until we are victorious. The president’s executive action was never the ultimate goal but merely a stepping stone to achieve Comprehensive Immigration Reform with a pathway to citizenship.