Latino Catholics in the US: The bitter aftertaste of deception

Data published this week by Pew Research confirms what reality in the parishes already suggested: the enthusiasm of certain Latino sectors has crashed against the violence of ICE.

Far from favoring Trump, Latino Catholicism is consolidating today as a block in resistance, distanced from White Catholics and rejecting the mirage of an alliance that could not survive the reality of ICE.

By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez

This week, the Pew Research Center published its latest data on changes in the perception of Donald Trump based on the religious identity of citizens in the United States.

The Center's most recent analysis reveals a deep fracture in the "Catholic vote" in the U.S., where the ethnic factor prevails over shared faith. It must be noted that a unified "Catholic vote" has never existed in the United States—not among the population that sees itself as White or Caucasian, nor among other groups, including Latinos or Hispanics.

For decades, Mexican Americans have been closer to the Democratic Party in the strongholds of that ethnic group in California, Illinois, Texas, and more recently in New York, Georgia, and other states of the Union. Puerto Ricans followed a similar pattern, though more concentrated in New York, Illinois, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

Only Cuban Americans identified themselves more actively and decisively as hardline Republicans in Florida, starting in the 1980s. However, even in New York, it was possible to find Democratic support clubs with a large number of Cuban Americans.

The arrival of high-income Latinos in Florida at the beginning of this century accentuated the fiercely Republican character of the Latino community in that state, especially with a popular base of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and refugees from other countries.

This pattern accelerated due to the presence of people with dual or multiple citizenships from countries like Argentina, who found in Florida a favorable space to amplify their criticisms of Kirchnerism and, more generally, Argentine Peronism.

Those sectors were also some of the most aggressive in their attacks on the late Pope Francis, whom they dismissed as "Peronist" and/or "Communist." This occurred despite Francis himself identifying his family as close to the positions of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) in Argentina—the historical rival of Peronism, which is now a highly fragmented and marginal organization.

It was precisely Francis's papacy, with its less dogmatic positions and greater willingness to dialogue with the Cuban government, which encouraged groups close to the Republican Party to turn Miami into the capital of the mythical Latino “Catholic vote.”

A series of articles published by Los Ángeles Press in 2023 documented how Eduardo Verástegui's "debut" in public life in the U.S., Mexico, and other Latin American countries as a "Catholic" public figure took place in Miami.

This allowed for an intense mobilization of Catholic and evangelical groups in favor of Donald Trump within Latino or Hispanic communities as early as 2016, and even more so in 2020 and 2024. In these communities, the current president was presented as someone willing to guarantee the end of abortion in the United States.

Thus, a base of support for Trump was built in Hispanic communities in states like New Jersey. However, by November 2025, that support evaporated when the violence Trump was willing to exert to push his migration policy became evident.

What the Pew Research Center study documents is precisely the extent of the collapse of the always-weak support for Trump among Hispanic or Latino Catholics in the United States.

These are the fundamental points regarding the Hispanic or Latino Catholic population in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center:

• Low Approval Levels: Only two out of ten Hispanic or Latino Catholics (23 percent) approve of Donald Trump's performance in the presidency. This is one of the lowest approval levels among all religious groups analyzed by the Center.
• Downward Trend: Compared to the start of his second term in 2025, approval among Hispanic Catholics has dropped eight percentage points. Although this is a smaller decline than that of White evangelicals, it confirms that the group is not aligning with the administration as the term progresses.
• The "Great Ethnic Divide": The report confirms that Catholicism in the U.S. does not act as a monolithic block. There is a 29-point gap between White Catholics (where 52 percent approve of Trump) and Hispanic Catholics (the aforementioned 23 percent).
• Alignment with Other Sectors: Statistically, Hispanic or Latino Catholics are in the same opinion block as Black Protestants (12 percent approval) and religiously unaffiliated people or “nones” (24 percent)—sectors that historically maintain a critical stance toward the Republican agenda.
• Perception of Policies: Unlike other groups showing recent doubts, the resistance of Hispanic Catholics to the administration's plans and policies has been constant, remaining one of the sectors with the lowest support for the official agenda over the past year.

The Pew Research Center document is available here. Sadly, a change in the institution's policy makes it difficult to reproduce their charts here. Despite this, it is possible to present some of their data, as shown in the table below.

The collapse documented by Pew Research goes beyond statistics. It is a symptom of an ethical, ethnic, and cultural rupture. What was presented in 2024 in many parishes and Latino communities as a pragmatic alliance in defense of traditional moral values has crashed head-on into the reality of an administration whose migration policy does not distinguish between creeds.

On several occasions, Los Ángeles Press has documented the difficult reality of states with large groups of Hispanics or Latinos who cannot even attend their religious services—Catholic or otherwise—for fear of being arrested, regardless of their migratory status.

For Hispanic or Latino Catholics in the United States, the 29-point gap compared to their White coreligionists confirms that religious identity is no longer a sufficient refuge against a political agenda that perceives them, above all, as strangers.

The evidence

Evidence of this collapse was already visible in the recent November 2025 elections for governor in New Jersey and for mayor in Miami, Florida.

In the 2025 mayoral runoff in the city of Miami, 27 out of 57 precincts that voted for Trump in 2024 flipped Democratic. At least 85 percent of those flipped precincts were majority-Latino. The overall result was 59.46 percent for Democratic candidate Eileen Higgins and 40.54 percent for Trump‑backed Emilio González with all 139 precincts reporting. These are exactly the neighborhoods—Allapattah, Little Havana sectors, Coconut Grove—that had swung right toward Trump.

In New Jersey the pattern is similar. Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill won 57 percent statewide, flipping 57 municipalities that voted for Trump in 2024.

Among the flipped municipalities were Passaic, Clifton, Kearny, and Garfield—all cities with large Latino populations that had surprised observers by swinging toward Trump in 2024. Sherrill taking them back indicates a strong reversion toward Democrats.

The return of Latino‑heavy municipalities to the Democratic column—with margins resembling pre‑2020 patterns—constitutes a collapse of the temporary Trump‑aligned surge in those areas.

Ultimately, the mirage of a conservative and united Catholic block dissolves into the bitter aftertaste of a deception that seems here to stay.