• A comedian told a Trump rally on Sunday that Puerto Rico is “a floating island of trash.”
• Puerto Rican celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, responded by showing their support for Kamala Harris.
• The incident echoes the aftermath of Trump spreading a conspiracy theory about Haitian migrants.

Puerto Rican celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin voiced their support for Kamala Harris after the island became a focal point of a Donald Trump rally.

Tony Hinchcliffe, a speaker at Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, said: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The comment angered Puerto Rican celebrities.

Luis Fonsi, the singer behind the 2017 hit “Despacito,” wrote on his Instagram Story: “It’s okay to have different opinions, and I respect those who think differently than me… but going down this RACIST path is not.’

He said: “We do not agree with this constant hatred. It is very clear that these people have no respect for us and yet they want our vote.”

Martin shared the video with his story and captioned it in Spanish: “This is what they think of us.”

On their Instagram Stories, Fonsi, Lopez and Martin shared a video of Harris laying out her plan to support Puerto Rico if elected and urged their followers to vote for the Democratic candidate. Bad Bunny, a rapper and singer, reshared the same video on his story four times in a row without any captions.

None of these celebrities were previously major Republican ally. Yet high-profile interventions can often encourage apathetic voters to vote.

CBS News reported in September that more than 400,000 users visited the voter registration website vote.gov the day after Taylor Swift endorsed Harris on Instagram.

Harris’ Instagram account shared the clip earlier on Sunday. In the video, she accused Trump of “blocking” aid after two hurricanes hit Puerto Rico in two weeks in 2017, causing $90 billion in damage, a 180-day blackout and killing an estimated 2,975 people were killed.

Trump said in 2018 that his administration’s response to the hurricanes was “an incredible, unsung success,” but it was widely criticized at the time.

In 2021, a Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General report found that $20 billion in aid the department wanted to send to Puerto Rico was delayed due to interagency reviews under the Trump administration. The researchers did not say why these assessments were implemented.

It is not the first time that Trump and his allies have angered celebrities from a Caribbean community.

Last month, high-profile Haitians including Wyclef Jean, Rep. Shelia Cherfilus-McCormick, the first Haitian-American in Congress, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills personality Garcelle Beauvais spoke out after Trump made the false claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were killing and eating pets.