A new poll shows the vast majority of Texas Latinos are afraid of becoming the victim of a racially-motivated shooting.
The August third mass shooting in El Paso, in which the 22 Hispanics were murdered, loomed large in the poll.
The poll, conducted by the gun control group Giffords and the political organization Latino Victory project, says 81 percent of the respondent are afraid of being shot because they are Hispanic.
Latino Victory executive director Mayra Macias says “they’re scared that another incident that is driven by hate is likely to happen. For the first time, I would say as a collective, we feel this weight of a target on our backs.”
The statewide poll surveyed more than a thousand Texas Latino voters, both Republicans and Democrats. Macias says “Frankly we did not expect to see that type of response. 82 percent of respondents reported holding President Trump partly responsible for the increase in anti-immigrant and anti-Latino language.”
Other numbers from the poll show 72% of respondents agreed that President Trump had made life more difficult for the Latino population living in the United States.
74% of Latino voters in Texas feel that there has been an increase in hate crimes in recent years.
80% of respondents agreed that stricter gun laws are necessary. More than half of respondents stated that they felt gun laws should be significantly stricter.
Only 5% of the respondents were of the view that gun laws should be less strict.
