This Sunday on Univision America Network’s “Newsmaker Sunday with Fernando Espuelas,” Dolores Huerta, civil rights leader and board member of People For the American Way, discussed the dangers of the Kochs’ Libre Initiative to the Latino community. During the interview, Huerta emphasized that despite the image the Libre Initiative is trying to project to Latino voters, the organization is actually working to get anti-immigrant and anti-worker candidates elected.
“We’ve got to let our community know that Libre, which is funded by the Koch brothers, are not our friends,” Huerta said.
Dolores Huerta: The one thing that’s really concerning just now is that the Koch brothers have started a new initiative, called Libre, which targets Latino voters. They’re really deceiving the voters and trying to make them think that they’re supporting immigration reform, but at the same time, they are supporting all of the Republican candidates that are right now trying to keep Obama’s executive actions from taking effect. They’re putting unlimited amounts of money into getting politicians elected that are anti-immigrant, anti-workers, anti-clean environment, and they’re going to try to confuse Latino voters into thinking that they’re their friends. We’ve got to let our community know that Libre, which is funded by the Koch brothers, are not our friends.
Fernando Espuelas: In particular in the 2014 cycle, Libre spent millions of dollars to bring down certain Latino candidates in Florida and elsewhere, with what objectively would seem to be lies in their commercials. Do you think this is a real menace going forward, including in 2016?
Dolores Huerta: Oh I think so! Basically they’ll just be telling a lot of lies and making people think that the candidates they’re supporting are pro-immigrant, at the same time that they’re voting against everything that we’re trying to get for immigration reform. So it’s a very deceptive, but very well-funded operation….We [have to] spread the message that when people hear the word libre, it doesn’t mean libre [free], it means cadenas, it means chains, just the opposite of libre. This is a ruse that is going to try to entrap people, try to confuse them. We want to do a better job to inform and to educate the Latino voting public who your friends are and who your enemies are. And one of those big enemies is going to be Libre, the group that wants to put us in chains. There’s a good saying in Spanish, dar gato por liebre, so this is dar gato por Libre.
You can listen to the entire interview here:
For more information about the Libre Iniative, see People For the American Way’s report, “The Libre Initiative: The Koch Brothers’ Focus on Latino Voters.” The report is also available in Spanish here.