Support for Israel stronger than ever, says Latino evangelical leader

Support for Israel among Hispanic evangelicals in the United States has reached unprecedented heights, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference said on Monday.

The remarks come just months after US President Donald Trump achieved a record share of Latino votes in the US elections, and offered a bastion of faith-based support in the predominantly Roman Catholic Latino community.

“The vast majority of the Hispanic evangelical community have a strong commitment to both Israel and the Jewish people around the world, and to build a multi-generational firewall against antisemitism,” Samuel Rodriguez told JNS. “Our commitment to Israel is without compromise and is stronger than ever before.”

Rodriguez delivered an invocation at Trump’s first inauguration and has been named one of Israel’s Top 50 Christian Allies by the Washington, D.C.-based Israel Allies Foundation. He is in Israel this week to receive the Jerusalem Award from the Friends of Zion Museum, reserved for Christian leaders who support Israel.

His organization serves millions of Hispanic born-again Christians through thousands of evangelical congregations based in the United States, along with thousands of affiliated churches globally.

In addition to domestic issues, Trump’s commitment to Israel and pushback against the antisemitism rife on U.S. college campuses are an additional “indicative marker” of Hispanic evangelical support for the U.S. leader, Rodriguez said.

“We believe that Trump is a quintessential deal maker who will bring people together and will advance public policies that will protect Israel and confront the Iranian nuclear threat,” he told JNS.

More than four out of every 10 Latinos—a sector that has traditionally voted Democrat—voted for Trump in the November elections.

The 55-year-old Latino leader and pastor, who was born to Puerto Rican parents in the United States, said that a muscular U.S. foreign policy in the region would be a stark contrast to the last four years.

“Weakness attracts adversity, and we saw the results of that,” he said.

About 65 million Hispanics live in the United States, making up nearly 20% of the population, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center report.

While most Hispanics are Catholic and tend to be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, the number of evangelical Latinos is on the rise.

“It’s a work in progress,” Rodriguez said of the Latino community at large.

© JNS