Here’s Why You Need to Know Rep. Adriano Espaillat, The First Undocumented Immigrant in Congress.
The hot button politician blowing up everyone’s Twitter feeds is the one and only AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). While she may be the youngest, most progressive Congresswoman on record, there is another Latino breaking records that you should have on your radar. Adriano Espaillat is a Dominican-born American politician representing New York’s 13th congressional district. And, he’s the first formerly undocumented immigrant to ever serve in Congress as well as the first Dominican to ever serve in Congress. He’s not just trying to fit in and make any power grabs either. He’s putting everything on the line to fearlessly serve the immigrant community. Espaillat isn’t abandoning his community and has made them his entire platform. Espaillat has led the Democrat party to introduce an Immigration Package to the floor. Espaillat came to the U.S. as a child with his family. The Espaillats had to live as undocumented until their green card applications were approved a full year later. Espaillat was only 11 years old when this happened. Espaillat led the initial effort to Impeach Trump. When Verizon and DirectTV dropped Televisión Dominicana, Espaillat called on the companies to change course.