APSU College Republicans had U.S. Senator candidate, Rolando Toyos speak to the organization on Thursday, Feb. 15 at 5 p.m.
Toyos spoke about his platform and on ideas to help fix the economy like immigration and health care.
One issue that he addressed is health care and his plan to combat it.
According to Toyos website, he proposes a solution called the Protective Healthcare Act or PHA, to insure citizens while also lowering personal tax.
“The goal of the Protective HealthCare Act, PHA, is to medically insure everyone without raising personal taxes and at the same time lowering the cost curve closer to what is seen in other free nations,” the site said.
Toyos also spoke about immigration and how his Cuban father and Dominican mother came to the U.S. legally making him a first generation immigrant.
Toyos said part of the issue with illegal immigration deals with Mexican gangs trying to control the drug trade in border towns and their being able to kill without being documented.
“There’s about four or five gangs right now that are trying to take control of the drug market. If you look at a town right across the border, like Tijuana they had 1,700 murders,” Toyos said.
Toyos believes there should not be amnesty and no DACA for these residents.
“My feeling is that we shouldn’t have any amnesty. There should be no DACA. We should build the wall or some type of technology to try to prevent illegals from trying to get here,” Toyos said.
He feels with the U.S. being so far in debt, open borders would not be beneficial. Toyos also feels the process of legally immigrating does not need to be modified.
“By not curbing illegal immigration, your making life worse for people who don’t live here,” Toyos said.
He followed by also announcing that he is pro-2nd amendment and had previously been a teacher after being asked about the school shooting in Florida.
“I am pro-2nd amendment. Wouldn’t it have been better if some of them [teachers] had guns and not only shielded the students but actually fired back,” Toyos said.
After Toyos had finished, the College Republicans went into their regularly scheduled meeting.
Sophomore political science major and President of College Republicans Taylor Scott spoke about how the organization is trying to rebuild itself.
“We’ve just experienced a lot of leadership changes, and we just elected new officers in the Fall,” Scott said. “When I came into office in the Fall we did not have a lot of members so we have been working on gaining traction.”
She explained that social media is how they have gained membership and connections are how candidates, like Toyos come to speak on campus.
“We’ve really had a lot of people reach out, and we have gotten a lot of people to come to our meetings,” Scott said. “The majority of our Executive Council have internships and we have a lot of connections so they reach out to us and that’s mainly how we get candidates to come talk to us.”
Scott said students can get involved by signing up on Peaylink and their meetings are at 4 p.m. on Mondays in room MUC 307 and 4 p.m. on Thursdays in room MUC 308.
