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A recent ad from Missouri Sen. Bill Eigel is stirring up controversy for Latino families in the Kansas City area and across Missouri.
Eigel’s gubernatorial ad, titled "No More Illegals," depicts a Latino interpreter discussing Eigel’s plans to deport illegal immigrants if elected.
Raymond Muñoz was watching the local news when he saw it during a commercial break.
"I didn’t think anything of it in the beginning, but then I saw what was going on, and it honestly blew my mind when I saw how it went and how it ended," Muñoz said.
The ad has received criticism from Latino community members across the Kansas City area and has even caught the eye of the League of United Latin American Citizens’ national president.
“As the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States, LULAC believes that the current climate of hate speech and vitriolic rhetoric in political campaigns is deeply damaging to our democracy and must come to an end," read a statement from LULAC.
It went on to address politicians more directly.
“LULAC is calling for all political candidates to reflect and reconsider the use of their words and messages that they share in their stump speeches, ads, and on social media," Roman Palomares, LULAC's national president, said. "From the race for President of the United States to someone at the state, county, or local level, LULAC urges candidates to think about how their words have consequences."
One of the first things Muñoz did after seeing the ad was reach out to LULAC, who he said was incredibly responsive to his disdain.
"I think what this ad is meant to do is provide a signal to Republican voters who are very conservative on the issue of immigration and to indicate that Eigel is the most conservative of the candidates running when it comes to immigration," said Beth Vonnahme, a political science professor at the University of Missouri — Kansas City.
"The more outrageous the ad, the more likely you get sort of an ad to go viral, and so yeah, I do think some of that shock value is part of the strategy for a number of candidates," she said.
That shock value certainly resonated with Muñoz, who feels like the ad took the idea of strategizing too far.
“It was just making a mockery of an entire large population,” he said.
With over 36 million eligible voters in 2024, Latinos are the largest voting bloc in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
"It’s important to understand that the Latino community itself is not monolithic, which means that they have very different ideas, very different values,” said Edgar Palacios, the founder and CEO of Revolución Educativa, an organization that works to improve education outcomes and provide resources for Latino individuals in the Kansas City area.
Among those resources are interpreters, which made Eigel’s ad stick out even more.
“[It’s] really mocking the ability to be multi-lingual and to mock the incredible profession that it is to be an interpreter; I think it really just elevates the lack of understanding and respect he has for our community,” Palacios said. "It’s a missed opportunity to understand what immigrants really look like in our community and that they come from different parts of the world, not just from Central American countries or Mexico or South America. We have immigrants from all over the world, particularly in Kansas City."
U.S. Census data from 2022 says immigrants contribute over $380 million to federal taxes.
"That’s not money that’s going to be easily brought back in if Missouri continues to build upon its anti-immigrant rhetoric and its legislation in that way," Palacios said. "In Kansas City, we’re trying to build a more inclusive and more welcoming community. It makes it hard when a candidate for governor is creating division and not understanding the full value and benefits that being multilingual provide our country."
Eigel was firm in his stance on the ad both times KSHB 41 News asked him about it.
"I reject the idea that it’s racist," Eigel said in an interview on July 25. "I think that’s a narrative that’s driven by a lot of folks on the left who seem to find cause to be offended by anything they see in political ads these days."
Eigel hosted a campaign event on Monday as a part of The Reckoning Tour, about eight days before the primaries. We also asked him about the ad there.
He doubled-down on defending the ad.
"I think that ad is fantastic," Eigel said. "I mean, that was an ad that not only laid out what I was going to do as governor of the state to deport the illegals, but just in case anybody had any confusion, so I feel very good about this. I know that there are calls by folks on the left that are outraged or offended, or they’re calling me all sorts of names, but I don’t know how it could be considered anything but rational that I’m going to be the guy that’s going to enforce the laws in this state."
But as a viewer, Muñoz says optics matter.
“It's a bad look for Missouri; it's a bad look for anybody nationwide that does it,” he said.
Experts like Vonnahme says ads like this is a part of a larger trend of political ads becoming more and more extreme.
KSHB 41 reporter Charlie Keegan spoke with voters about Attorney General candidate Will Scharf's political ad, which depicted a grenade launcher on air.
"I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve beaten Joe Biden and his political cronies in courtrooms across America, including at the U.S. Supreme Court, and I think the ad was a fun way of getting that message across,” Scharf said at a campaign event for Eigel on Monday in Lee's Summit.
But as is the case with both candidates, federal laws prevent broadcasters from censoring or removing political ads from legally qualified candidates.
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