Latino leaders want meeting with Trump, hope he will calm fears.

WASHINGTON — Latino leaders fearful of Donald Trump and worried about a new rash of bullied Hispanic children want a meeting with the president-elect to hear if he plans to follow through with draconian campaign promises.

Concerns expressed Thursday by leaders of major Latino groups cast a shadow over significant election victories by Hispanic candidates, including Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto’s history-making win to become the first Latina in the U.S. Senate.

In addition, five Latinos defeated non-Latinos to win seats in Congress, and Hispanics across the country were heartened by the Arizona election unseating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, notorious for his tent-city “concentration camps” in border control.

Hispanics also pointed to success in legislative races coast-to-coast and statewide in Illinois, where Susan Mendoza won election as state comptroller, a high-profile job in the fifth-most-populous state.

But the Latino leaders of nonpartisan organizations say they have yet to take a deep breath because of uncertainty about Trump.

“Following the election, we are deeply concerned for the safety and security of Latinos in this nation,” said Hector Sanchez, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

“We call upon President-elect Donald Trump to change the course on campaign promises, and we hope the presidentelect will make a sincere and concerted effort to promote tolerance and respect for all Americans.”

‘Divisive rhetoric’

Janet Murguia, CEO of the National Council of La Raza, said that Trump’s “harsh and divisive rhetoric, his extreme proposals and the fact that his outreach to our community during his campaign was non-existent have fostered legitimate and significant concerns.”

She added: “There is real anxiety and even fear in our community today.”

The leaders spoke at a news conference before a conference call with members seeking counsel in dealing with incidents of harassment since the election.

They described bullying and racial insults in the aftermath of Trump’s victory and said they encourage text reporting to the number 73179. They suggest that teachers consult the tolerance.com website of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Some of the taunts and remarks aimed at Hispanics, African-Americans and Muslims are being logged at Twitter sites, among them an account called Day 1 in Trump’s America.

Roger Rocha, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he had received a phone call before the news conference about a student at the University of Texas being harassed with the words, “we’re going to ship your brown (behind) home.”

Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund, said he and others had reached out to Trump repeatedly before the election but “every single overture that we made to the campaign of Donald Trump was ignored.”

“We look forward to him helping turn down the temperature,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of VotoLatino,

The leaders say they especially need to hear from Trump on the future of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Trump has promised to rescind the four-year program begun under the Obama administration enabling hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people to receive work permits.

Trump has not recently emphasized his earlier vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, referring instead to kicking out “criminal aliens.” Leaders say clarity is needed.

At the news conference, leaders pointedly rejected exit polling suggesting Trump did even better than Mitt Romney four years ago among Latinos. The surveys by New Jersey-based Edison Media Research for a consortium of news organizations found that Clinton outpolled Trump 65-29 percent among Hispanic voters.

‘No excuse’

Four years ago, Edison’s research showed Barack Obama defeating Mitt Romney 71-27 in a Hispanic vote count.

The issue is important to Latinos because of intense mobilization amid Trump’s insults and news reports this week that Latinos helped elect Trump. Latino organizations point to polling by Seattle-based Latino Decisions, which they describe as the “gold standard” for Hispanic research, which concluded that Hispanics supported Clinton over Trump 79-18 percent (and 80-16 percent in Texas) based on 5,600 pre-election interviews.

Latino Decisions and defenders say the discrepancy results because Edison does not sufficiently sample high-density Latino precincts.

“There is no excuse to continue getting these numbers incorrect,” said the National Council of La Raza’s Clarissa Martinez-de-Castro.

Edison Executive Vice President Joe Lensky defended his company’s methods.

“You have to wonder what their agenda is that makes them so threatened by these numbers,” he said.