The Japan Times - 'Way too far': Latino Trump voters shocked by Minneapolis crackdown

But faced with Trump's harsh immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where two US citizens were killed by federal agents last month, the Protestant pastor is remorseful.

"I don't agree with what's happening, it's too violent," he said, knowing he was part of the so-called Latino wave that helped reelect the Republican billionaire.

Roving raids across the Midwestern city -- where masked, armed federal agents continue to lurk outside hardware stores, gas stations and on neighborhood sidewalks -- have emptied out his church.

For the past two months, only a quarter of his congregants have dared attend Sunday service.

"All Latinos agree that if someone is here illegally and they're committing crimes, thefts, murders, they must be arrested and deported," Hernandez said. "But I don't agree with deporting people who are here out of necessity and haven't done anything."

At 45, this American of Mexican origin is dismayed by the US political landscape, which leaves him feeling forced to choose between "the far right and the far left."

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was out of the question for Hernandez, who laments the "moral and spiritual decay"of a left that, for example, defends abortion or children's events hosted by drag queens.

- 'Never thought' -

Hernandez remains critical of former Democratic president Joe Biden for failing to slow inflation, and "deporter-in-chief"Barack Obama for expelling millions of immigrants -- though without the shock-and-awe tactics of the Trump administration.

Though Trump promised unprecedented mass deportations on the campaign trail, many immigrants didn't think they or their families would personally be targeted.

And many voters willingly overlooked the 79-year-old Republican's overtly racist dog whistles where he frequently conflated immigrants with criminals.

Instead, Hernandez believed Trump when he vowed to expel "bad hombres" and focus on those with violent convictions.

But the current indiscriminate dragnet has swept up undocumented workers with no criminal record, people legally seeking asylum, and children -- which shocks Sergio Amezcua, a Mexican American pastor who also supported Trump.

"I didn't vote for this," Amezcua said, outraged by the racial profiling he's seeing in Minneapolis.

Former vice president Harris won Latinos by a narrow margin in 2024, but Trump gained the support of 48 percent of such voters, according to the Pew Research Center -- up from 36 percent when he ran against Biden in 2020.

That dramatic gain could swing back in midterm elections looming later this year, as Minneapolis becomes a political flashpoint.

Over the past month, federal immigration enforcement agents have been filmed shooting and killing two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, amid protests in the city.

Agents were also photographed detaining Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old Ecuadoran boy wearing a fuzzy rabbit-eared hat and a lost gaze, sparking national outrage.

While the ballot box is unpredictable, the images coming out of Minneapolis "are powerful images that I don't think are going to go away between now and Election Day" in November, said David Schultz, political science professor at Hamline University.

- 'Way too far' -

Current polls show Latinos are souring on Trump -- and they're not alone.

"A lot of the swing voters, including Latinos, who had swung towards Trump in 2024 are now swinging away from him on a whole range of issues," Schultz said.

Republican Party leaders also worry the Trump administration's actions in Minneapolis will have national repercussions.

"It's gone too far," Ileana Garcia, co-founder of "Latinas for Trump" and Republican state senator in Florida, told the New York Times after Pretti was killed.

Garcia blamed any prospective midterm loss on Trump senior aide Stephen Miller, a key architect of the immigration crackdown.

Whoever is at fault, Feliza in Minneapolis agrees that "it's going way too far."

The devout 42-year-old Christian, whose grandfather was Mexican, declined to give her last name because she works to help hide undocumented residents of the city.

In the last three presidential contests, her strident anti-abortion views led her to cast a ballot in support of Trump.

Now, having witnessed immigration policing up close, she regrets that.

"I wish I would have never voted for him," she said.

K.Yoshida--JT