With Latinos representing 30.5 percent of Arizona's population, U.S. Sen. John McCain has amped his Latino outreach efforts as he prepares his 2016 re-election process.

The Republican Arizona senator announced his Hispanic campaign team and coalition. Known as "Unidos con McCain," the senator named Lea Marquez-Peterson, Tommy Espinoza and Pastor Jose Gonzalez to serve as the coalition's co-chairs. "Unidos con McCain" will reportedly focus on building the senator's grassroots support within the state's Latino community, including outreach through Spanish-language media.

To further boost his Latino engagement, McCain named Ana Carolina Pereira as his campaign's Hispanic Outreach Director.

"The co-chairs of 'Unidos con McCain' are some of the most highly respected leaders in our state, and I am deeply honored to have their support," said McCain in a statement. "Lea, Tommy and Jose have spent decades championing initiatives to strengthen Arizona's Hispanic community, which has done so much to enrich the culture and economy of our state. Their knowledge and background will be invaluable to my campaign's Hispanic outreach efforts, and vital to our victory in November."

In a joint statement, Espinoza, Gonzalez and Marquez-Peterson said McCain has championed the "values and ideals" that are important within Arizona's Latino community.

The joint statement continued, "John McCain has long been a leader in the fight for sensible, humane reforms to our broken immigration system, and for smart economic policies to help all Arizonans fulfill their God-given potential. Arizona's Hispanic community should be very proud to have a leader in Washington like John McCain, and we look forward to helping re-elect him in 2016."

McCain's record on immigration includes his status as an original co-sponsor of the 2013 bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation, known as the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act" (S. 744). McCain pushed for the bill with current Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

S. 744 called for several hundred miles of fencing on the southern U.S. border and an employment verification system for all employed, potentially-undocumented, immigrants. The bill also included training for nearly 38,405 full-time active duty U.S. Border Patrol agents, and it would have allowed the U.S. attorney general to increase the number of immigration court judges and reform the visa process.

The bill passed the Senate on June 27, 2013, but it was never picked up for debate in the House of Representatives.

In September, McCain defended the 2013 comprehensive legislation bill and said he was disappointed with the House not acting.

"I know that many on the right were not persuaded because they didn't act in the House of Representatives," McCain said, via AZCentral. "And my question to them is -- and I think it's legitimate, and they've never responded -- give me your solution to the problem."

More recently, with the current 114th Congress, McCain has supported legislation that raised concerns among Latinos.

Introduced by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., McCain is an original co-sponsor of the "Stop Sanctuary Cities Act" (S. 1814). Latino-led groups such as the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), which comprises of 40 national and regional Latino organizations, have criticized the bill for being anti-Latino and anti-immigrant. S. 1814 would restrict or prohibit select U.S. jurisdictions, often referred to as "sanctuary cities," from receiving federal grants and funds for not complying with federal law enforcements' request pertaining to a detained immigrant.

Also within the current congressional session, McCain introduced the "Criminal Alien Deportation Act" (S. 1752), which would amend the "Immigration and Nationality Act" to detain an immigrant who is unlawfully present in the U.S. or has been arrested for "specified offenses, conviction" that would render the immigrant "inadmissible or deportable." The bill would also increase, temporarily, the number of immigration judges and hire 150 new immigration law attorneys.

__

For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Politics Editor Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.