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By Adrián Florido

It was billed as a “listening session,” a chance for Latino leaders from across the country to sit down with members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team and talk about the issues important to them and to their constituents.

The invitation alone was notable, given the notoriously rocky relationship Trump has had with Latinos since the start of his campaign. Leaders of some of the largest Latino civil rights organizations have tried without success for more than a year to gain an audience with Trump or his team.

They finally got their wish on Tuesday. It was a breakthrough, but not everyone experienced it the same way.

According to some of those in attendance, there were more than 50 people in the room. A few were leaders of the country’s largest progressive advocacy groups like the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda. Many more represented conservative, evangelical, or pro-business organizations — groups like the LIBRE Initiative, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and regional Latino chambers of commerce.

“The listening session with Hispanic organizations was extremely well-attended and consisted of a wide ranging, frank discussion on areas of both agreement and concerns,” a Trump transition official said in an email to NPR. “This is the beginning of a conversation that will continue throughout the Trump administration. The Hispanic community will play a central role in our engagement going forward.”

But a big question for some in the room was this: Which Hispanic community?

Some of the attendees expressed concerns that the group convened by Trump’s team did not accurately reflect the nation’s broader Latino population or its priorities. They spoke with NPR on the condition that they not be named, given that it was an off-the-record gathering.

“Eighty percent of Latinos voted against Trump, so they probably didn’t share the same conservative leanings that these people around the table did,” a self-described progressive said, citing data from the polling firm Latino Decisions. “I think that when you put a focus on conservative organizations, you’re going to get the perspective of the conservative Latino community. I think they got that pretty good, but this was not a representative meeting of the larger Latino population.”

One progressive leader, attendees said, invited Trump’s team to come to a followup meeting to discuss what he called the “real policy priorities of Latino communities.”

According to several people who were in the room, the meeting played out this way:

Each person got roughly two minutes to talk about his or her organization’s priorities. Conservative leaders offered a range of views, with some expressing support for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, for de-funding Planned Parenthood, and opposition to raising the federal minimum wage.

Some progressive leaders stressed the importance of protecting voting rights and health coverage for the millions of Americans who gained it under the Affordable Care Act. They voiced concerns about some of Trump’s political appointees, among other issues. Among the transition officials running the meeting were Mercedes Schlapp, a Fox News pundit and Trump supporter, Katrina Campins, a former contestant on The Apprentice, and Jennifer Korn of the Republican National Committee.

Laura Murillo, president of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, acknowledged that the room “did lean heavier on the conservative side,” but she thought the meeting represented a good sampling of Latino views.

“That’s the Hispanic community,” she said. “We all differ. There’s not one organization, Hispanic or not, that represents all the views of this country. That was the important part of this meeting, that in fact, even among the Hispanic community, we have conservatives, moderates and independents.”

There were areas where most of the leaders agreed, sources said. There was general consensus among attendees that Trump should protect the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who are in the country illegally but whom President Obama has shielded from deportation through DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Leaders at the meeting also agreed on the need for broader immigration reforms and on the importance of having Trump nominate a Latino or Latina to his Cabinet.

And they universally denounced the rhetoric that Trump directed at Latinos during his campaign, saying that his tone toward them must change, according to several attendees.

“We want to make sure that we are part of this country’s fabric,” Murillo said, “and not just a thread.”

Your Editor Applauds: Talking to power persuasively

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By Karoun Demirjian

A bipartisan group of senators is acting to try to keep undocumented young Americans from being deported in the event President-elect Donald Trump ends a program to let them stay in the United States to work or attend school.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) reintroduced a bill from last year to help anyone who meets the requirements for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program avoid deportation. President Obama created the “dreamers” program by executive order in 2012, but it is now in jeopardy as Trump approaches his inauguration, pledging to repeal many of Obama’s executive orders on his first day in office.

Trump also ran much of his campaign promising to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and stating that the United States needs to be more stringent about whom it lets into the country. He has suggested, for instance, that Muslims should be temporarily banned from the United States until a better vetting system is in place.

The nativist rhetoric has worried senators that DACA will be among the first executive orders rescinded by Trump once he’s installed in the White House.

“It’s my firm belief most Americans want to fix a broken immigration system in a humane manner,” Graham said in a statement.

The South Carolina Republican — frequently a Trump antagonist — noted that while he believes the DACA order “was unconstitutional” and should eventually be repealed, “I do not believe we should pull the rug out and push these young men and women — who came out of the shadows and registered with the federal government — back into the darkness.”

Undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children have emerged as a special category in an otherwise contentious debate over immigration, and both Democrats and Republicans have stepped forward to endorse proposals that would allow many of them to stay — particularly those attending school or contributing to the economy.

“We’ve witnessed them realize their full potential — by opening businesses, becoming doctors and teachers, and serving our country in uniform,” Durbin said in a statement. He called the bill “an opportunity for supporters and critics of DACA to come together and address a compelling humanitarian issue on a bipartisan basis.”

Graham, Durbin and other supporters of the measure believe they can easily get enough support for passage, if leaders are willing to put it on the floor.

They plan to campaign for that vote actively if Trump repeals Obama’s executive order.

Other supporters of the measure include Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Democrats Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.). Reps. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) are introducing companion legislation in the House.

Karoun Demirjian covers defense and foreign policy for The Washington Post, and was previously a correspondent based in the Post’s bureau in Moscow, Russia.

Your Editor Asks: How much heart?

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By Scott Fybush, Radio World

In a long and distinguished Washington career, Francisco “Frank” Montero has served both at the Federal Communications Commission and in the D.C. legal community. He is a managing member at the firm of Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth. During the Clinton administration, Montero served as director of the FCC’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities.

His work has long included a focus on Hispanic broadcasters, especially with his service on the board of directors of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. He represents the Puerto Rico Broadcasters Association in Washington and has been a key player with the American Hispanic Owned Radio Association, the Spanish Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Minority Media Executives.

Radio World profiled Montero in 1998, and with upheaval in political Washington, we reached out to him at the end of 2016 for insight into what might be ahead at the Portals, especially where minority broadcasters are concerned.

Radio World: What stands out to you as one of the biggest changes in the industry since 1998?
Frank Montero: Eighteen years ago, we were on the heels of what was a pretty dramatic deregulatory step. You had some pretty dramatic lifting of media ownership caps in the wake of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that triggered a feeding frenzy driving radio prices and radio multiples sky-high. Back then, stations were trading at 16, 17, 18 times cash flow. It was absolutely insane. You had companies like Chancellor, SFX and Clear Channel, just buying each other out like crazy.

Clearly, this new administration is making rumbling noises about taking an even more deregulatory stand toward the media landscape. You have two Republican commissioners who are likely to stay, Michael O’Rielly and Ajit Pai, both of whom have been, comparatively speaking, friendly to the broadcast industry, and especially to the radio industry.

Ajit Pai in particular has taken an interest in creating a new class of FM station and in AM revitalization; O’Rielly has taken a stand against pirates.

But this president-elect has not exactly been a huge fan of what he calls the “liberal media” and has already made some noises that he would not favor something like the Time Warner-AT&T merger and may not be a big fan of any further media consolidation.

RW: How does the commission itself change as the Trump administration takes power?
Montero: Let’s walk through a couple of scenarios. It now appears that [Democratic Commissioner Jessica] Rosenworcel will not be confirmed. [Republican Commissioner] Pai will likely become the Acting Chair.

When [Democratic Chairman] Tom Wheeler leaves, you’ve got three FCC commissioners, and Republicans will have a majority of the votes, 2–1, that’s a quorum, and they can really start getting into gear.

But there’s another interesting scenario … what if [Democratic Commissioner] Mignon Clyburn leaves also? Now you don’t have a quorum, and you have two Republican commissioners, but everything is held up until you’re able to get a third or more commissioners appointed and passed through Senate confirmation to get things moving again.

RW: What are some of the priorities you expect a new FCC to tackle?
Montero: One that I’ve heard a lot of people discuss on the radio side are the sub-caps on radio ownership, the ability to have a greater allocation of FM versus AM or AM versus FM. Right now, if you can have seven stations in a market, you’re limited to four FMs and three AMs, but a complete lifting would allow you to go to the full limit within one service, which could have a much bigger impact than might be appreciated.

RW: Do you think they’d allow, say, one company to own eight FMs in Los Angeles or New York?
Montero: Even with this president-elect, I think they might see a complete lifting of the sub-caps as a “safe” step without going to a complete lifting of the ownership caps and without undercutting the position they may take on larger mergers that may impact the whole telecommunications landscape.

The only thing is, if they are lifted, I would be a little worried for AM. I think that AM is struggling now. I would be a little worried that if there were no sub-cap and a limit of eight stations in a market and all eight could be FM, that current group owners might start shedding AMs like crazy. It would be a good little shot in the arm for FM, but you could see it further depress the value of AMs.

RW: Is that ultimately a good or a bad thing for minority owners, if it were to put some bigger AM signals on the market at low prices?
Montero: In the late 1990s, [Spanish-language radio] was a market that was on fire in terms of how quickly it was growing, but it was still in its early phases of development. I attribute the change in the landscape to the 1990 Census. That’s when things started turning around, when Jerry Perenchio bought a sleepy little network called Univision, when a retired U.S. senator, Cecil Heftel, started the company that became HBC and then Univision Radio. By the late 1990s, it was running on all cylinders, but even then, breaking in on FM in a major market like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago was still a relatively new thing.

What you had not really seen yet was the infiltration of Spanish-language into secondary and tertiary markets in places like Birmingham, Raleigh or Charlotte, or even places like Boise or Milwaukee. Now those markets have exploded. So Spanish-language media today is very much mainstream.

But having said that, it’s still something that can flourish in the AM band. For Latino broadcasters who are looking to get in, AM still has a low barrier to entry and affordable prices. If you happen to be in a small, emerging Spanish-language market, you can get a foothold and grow. I have seen an extraordinary number of broadcasters taking advantage of the FM translator window as a way to expand their signals and audience.

Access to capital in those markets has been difficult. There hasn’t been the ability to get a lot of financing. Banks are not racing to make broadcast loans the way they had been 20 years ago. Local, regional and community banks are, frankly, afraid to get into broadcasting because they’re not familiar with it. They don’t understand how broadcasting works, and so even though they have a good relationship with local broadcasters, they’re a little hesitant.

This is an area I’ve gotten very involved with, working on educating banks to familiarize them with the process of making broadcast loans — how such loans are structured, how valuations work, on the difference between stick valuation and cashflow valuation, so that loan applications can get through their loan committees more readily to help small broadcasters get into the marketplace and grow their businesses. Because otherwise, with a lifting of ownership caps and subcaps, it will help the larger players and some of the regional, midsize players, but if you don’t have a foot in the door, it’s going to be very difficult.

RW: In the political climate now, is there danger to Spanish-language and other minority broadcasters?
Montero: If anything, the last election campaign, as ugly as it got … put a bright spotlight on the importance and integral role of the Hispanic community in American politics, culture and the economy.

The Latino population wields a great influence. It can tip elections; it can make or break businesses; and it has attracted the attention of political candidates and of mainstream media. The point that has not been lost on either side of the political aisle nor on Madison Avenue is that there are elements of the Latino population that are completely juiced up over this election. They’re going to want to have their voices heard.

There are others who may not be as strongly opposed to the Trump administration but may want to further develop the political influence that was seen during this election campaign, and their voices are all going to be heard more and more in the media. This segment of the population is not going to be stifled. If anything, you’re going to see more attention paid to them, more content on the airwaves.

I work with a great number of Spanish-language media companies that are based in Latin America. You have radio networks, TV networks, content providers throughout Latin America and Spain falling over each other to get access to the U.S. market.

If we were to see any stifling of this market … if a wall is built by this administration, or they take action to try to round up or deport aliens that are here illegally, that’s going to be huge news. Radio, I think, is going to play an integral role in disseminating that information, and that’s also a medium that politicians and PACs are going to want to have access to.

RW: What becomes of the FCC’s current push to allow more foreign ownership of broadcasters? Will that be reversed, given the Trump platform’s isolationist stances?
Montero: I’m inclined to think not. The broadcasting community has made it pretty clear that they favor these changes. It facilitates the ability of foreign capital to come into this industry, and that’s good for station values and for the market generally. Right now, you have two Republican commissioners who are very favorable to the broadcast community, and actually listen to broadcasters and go to conventions … so I’m inclined to think that these commissioners are going to be receptive to what the issues are in the broadcast community and not do a reversal.

RW: Are you concerned about First Amendment issues for broadcasters in a Trump administration?
Montero: I think that any attempts by the next administration, or any administration for that matter, to try to dramatically change the laws is going to be very difficult. So much of this is based on judicial precedent. While the president could end up appointing one or more Supreme Court justices, the Supreme Court will surprise you. They won’t always vote the way the president that appointed them wants them to.

Your Editor Explains: Since Radio World spoke with Frank Montero last week, some things at the FCC have changed, but overall his take on the immediate future remains highly valuable.

 

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The president-elect has pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, but his proposals would require the cooperation of state and local authorities.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents take a suspect into custody as part of a nationwide immigration sweep in 2012

By Priscilla Alvarez

In an interview with 60 Minutes last month, President-elect Donald Trump made yet another pledge to remove undocumented immigrants from the United States, saying he would deport up to 3 million of them who “have criminal records.” Similar promises—like building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and blocking federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities—were a cornerstone of his campaign. But as he assumes the presidency, Trump will face not only continued public opposition to his plans, but potential obstruction by state and local law enforcement who he would need to implement any new policies.

In many cases, federal immigration agents rely on local and state police forces to identify individuals who are in violation of immigration laws, and if so, to turn them over to the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration-enforcement arm. Rick Su, a law professor at the University at Buffalo who has researched immigration and local government, explains the significance of the cooperation this way: “The fact of the matter is, local law enforcement in this country encompasses the vast majority of law-enforcement resources.” He added: “As much as we talk about federal policy and the growth of the federal government, their capabilities are quite limited given how large the country is.”

But the collaboration between different levels of law enforcement has hit roadblocks in the past. Take the Secure Communities program, which originated in the George W. Bush administration. Under the program, local authorities shared digital fingerprints of people booked in jail with the feds, who could then screen a national database to see if any matched with individuals suspected of immigration violations. Over time, however, the program appeared to drive a wedge between local authorities and the communities they served. The Obama administration ended it in 2014, citing backlash from governors, mayors, and state and local enforcement officials.

When it comes to his promised immigration policies, the president-elect has already faced backlash of his own. From the public, but also from mayors and governors—like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy—who’ve pledged to limit cooperation with federal immigration agents during the Trump presidency. I spoke with Su to get a sense of how state and local governments might process the president-elect’s proposals. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Donald Trump has pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. What does this proposal mean for state and local governments?

I think it has tremendous implications only because interior enforcement of immigration in recent years has been extremely dependent on state and local participation. …

If we are going to be talking about the kind of numbers that President Trump is interested in, he will need, in some ways, some degree of participation—unless he wants to greatly expand federal enforcement agencies. He would need state and local participation in order to accentuate the numbers that he wants. But because of their involvement, states and localities have also been developing their own interests and policies on immigration.

What’s an example of the effect that federal immigration policies have on state and local law enforcement?

The collapse of Secure Communities would be a good way of looking at it. And this wasn’t dramatic involvement [of non-federal and federal law enforcement]; these weren’t like the Bush administration raids [some of which, controversially, took place at people’s workplaces]. These were supposed to be behind-the-scenes, in the booking process and the detention process. …

At first, I think, it was considered to be very innocuous, very in-the-background. I think what ended up happening is, as you had more and more accounts that during any encounter with police departments—whether as a victim, as a witness, or maybe as a perpetrator or a suspect—they would screen you automatically for immigration status, you started having a lot of local police departments, local police chiefs express concerns that that was making it more difficult for them to reach out to the communities that they want to help and protect.

Just as federal immigration enforcement now is reliant on local police departments, local police departments have also realized that they are also incredibly reliant on the communities themselves that help them with policing efforts. If you don’t have the cooperation of the community, that itself becomes a problem. You can’t entirely do it from a top-down enforcement perspective. I think that’s when you started seeing a lot of people—and a lot of communities—rebel against the development of Secure Communities. And eventually President Obama scrapped it, even though it was originally imagined as something that was much less visible, and much less intrusive than what previous administrations had done. But as a result, it made local communities much more attuned to the kind of relationships they have with the federal government.

There have been a number of mayors and governors who have voiced their opposition to Trump’s immigration proposals. Is that an example of the type of resistance Trump may face?

The urgency has been raised because of what Donald Trump is proposing and because, I think, local law enforcement knows what would be involved if he actually wanted to carry out the numbers. …

These are policies and positions [opposing some federal immigration measures] that mayors have actually been taking already with less visibility for a long time. So, in some ways, they’re reasserting or reaffirming their position in light of different circumstances and maybe with more urgency.

In the end, Trump’s deportation proposals—and their execution—come back to which individuals he’ll mark first for removal. In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security said that they were prioritizing people who were threats to national security and public safety.

My impression is that the reason why the priorities at the federal level change was in large part because they started having and opening up a dialogue and communication with the local communities that would be affected by this.

As a result, what I saw [over time] in a lot of the shifting of federal priorities was actually a reflection of what the federal government was hearing from state and local officials. That, in some ways, was really interesting, because you had a system in which the federal government wanted, for their own interest, to convince state and local officials to cooperate. But as a result, state and local officials were able to give a broader perspective to the need and consequences of local immigration enforcement to the federal government.

In some ways, the Trump administration coming in is not only an immigration question. There’s a bigger picture: How dedicated are they to centralize Washington control? And how committed are they to listening to what’s happening in mainstream America?

This story originally appeared on The Atlantic.

Your Editor Wonders: Will we all be testing each other?

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