On Tuesday night, the nation tuned in to see the first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, and one thing they didn't talk about was the hotly debated topic of immigration or the large Latino population in the country. Neither Trump nor Biden made one mention of the Latino population, and Latino Decisions spokesperson expert Stephen Nuño-Perez said this speaks to how Latinos are overlooked in this country."It's an erasure of our experiences, it's an erasure of the issues and problems that we have," said Nuño-Perez. "We shouldn't be surprised when you put three men in a room, three white older men in a room together, they're just not going to have conversations about people of color." Both Trump and Biden did briefly mention some issues that are important to the Latino community, like COVID-19 and health care, but nothing on immigration."This year, we're not even seeing it in the top five," said Nuño-Perez. "And that is-- it's being overtaken my racism and discrimination." While polling shows that many Latinos are concerned about racism and discrimination against immigrants, they're more concerned about general racism and discrimination in the country. "So that's also why I think politicians are responding to that," he said. This year, it's projected that there are about 32 million Latinos in the country who are eligible to vote. In New Mexico, almost 50% of the state's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, making it a majority-minority state. Pew Research data also shows that this group will make up 13.3% of all eligible voters nationwide."It is symbolic when you have folks who are completely unrepresentative of New Mexico in general," Nuño-Perez said. "Those are concerns because when you don't feel like you're being represented you feel like you may just stay home on Election Day." So the big message for Latinos?"They have to put pressure on the party system to recognize that they are also part of the party," he said. Pew Research shows that 62% of Latino registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 34% say the same about the Republican Party. A large population of Latinos are also registered as Independent or were Bernie Sanders supporters, which Nuño-Perez said is hard for both parties to appeal to.