Nora Crosby Soto, owner of Latina Broadcasters of Daytona Beach, says is looking for help from the Latino community as she tries to get the FCC to allow her low-power station, Azteca America affiliate WDYB, to participate in the FCC incentive auction.
In a press release late Sunday emphasizing her story as a Mexican immigrant, she said she was "currently enlisting the guidance and support of the Latino community to reach out to the FCC and ask them to allow WDYB’s incentive auction eligibility."
A federal court has given Latina Broadcasters until Monday (March 7) to make their case for why the court should either allow them in the auction or delay the March 29 start date and Soto said the brief would be filed "as soon as the court opens on Monday.
"When Nora Soto crossed the Mexican border at the age of six, guided by a coyote, she never could have imagined that one day she’d be in a battle with one of the most powerful government agencies in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), just to hold on to her American Dream," began the release, which went on to outline her FCC and court challenge.
The FCC has said that Latina did not qualify and that it had made essentially a clerical error by indicating that the station was auction-eligible. It was on a preliminary list of auction-eligible station, but the FCC concluded it had missed a key filing date for establishing that eligibility.
“I have worked my entire life and sacrificed much to realize the American Dream. I’ve done everything to contribute and be an asset to this country,": Soto said. "I’m crushed, disappointed, and deeply saddened by the actions of the FCC that will jeopardize everything I’ve worked so hard to build. It is my hope that the commissioners of the FCC will do the right thing."
