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Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine talks about the importance of the Hispanic vote and fair immigration policies during a stop in Orlando.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine stressed the importance of Hispanic voters and fair immigration policies in Orlando on Monday, part of a multi-day campaign swing through Florida.
The Virginia senator appeared at a roundtable discussion with Latino religious leaders at the Hispanic evangelical church Iglesia El Calvario, where he said the U.S. should not be a “deportation nation.”
“We should be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” Kaine said. “Our focus shouldn’t be on deportation en masse, it should be on people who pose serious safety challenges.”
Kaine was introduced by Claudia Contreras, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant whose family came to America from Venezuela when she was 8 years old.
Contreras is one of the beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, which allows some undocumented immigrants who arrived before the age of 16 to get a renewable two-year work permit and be exempt from deportation, but which does not provide a path to citizenship.
“It could be taken away from me and many others,” Contreras said, stressing the need for Hispanics and others to vote in Florida for Democrat Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump.
Kaine also talked about his connection to the Spanish-speaking community from his days as a missionary in Honduras.
“We need to build a community of respect, a community where all can be respected,” Kaine said. “A nation where you can be respected no matter what your national origin, whatever language that you speak . ... We can solve any problem we have, if we let everybody sit at the table. The problem we have is that we push people away.”
The roundtable discussion, which included Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, was closed to the news media.
Pastor Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said beforehand that he hoped for an “inclusive ... positive vision” for the future of the country, which he said included not only 50 million Hispanics but 6 million Hispanic evangelicals.
After leaving the roundtable, he briefly stopped at Pulse nightclub, scene of the June 12 shooting massacre that left 49 dead and wounded more than 50.
Later Monday, Kaine was heading to a LGBT presidential debate watch party at the Orchid Garden on Church Street downtown.
The visit to Orlando was part of a Florida itinerary that included stops in Miami on Sunday and Lakeland on Monday morning, where Kaine talked about how critical the state will be in the presidential election.
“If anybody ever says ‘my vote doesn’t matter,’ I say, ‘Can I tell you about Florida in 2000?’” Kaine said in Lakeland. “So we have to have that attitude [that] we’re the underdog til they call us the winner.”
The Virginia senator also attacked Trump, saying “a guy who would persist in the bigoted lie that President Obama wasn’t born here, he could lie about anything.”