In the News

U.S. Congressman Adriano Espaillat recently honored the two men who had his congressional seat before him for Black History Month: former Congressmen Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Charles B. Rangel of New York’s 13th Congressional District.

"This action of Trump Management is totally outrageous and is designed to undermine markets ACA in 2017 , " said Congressman Espaillat. "The Administration has issued this order in the last critical days before the registration deadline of 31 January, when there is usually an increase in enrollment. As health experts have pointed out, withdrawing this advertising could now result in a reduction in enrollment and could affect the health of markets, with fewer young people enrolling.

Adriano Espaillat Cabral, the first Dominican congressman in the United States House of Representatives, took an oath before Judge Rolando Acosta (also a Dominican), reaffirming his defense of immigrants and citing himself as the best example to denounce the actions of hatred, xenophobia and racism of President Donald Trump.

The ceremony was held at Yeshiva Jewish University on Amsterdam Avenue and 186th Street in Upper Manhattan, where hundreds of people attended the activity.

“LIFT up the lamp at the golden door!” Adriano Espaillat shouted into the microphone, invoking the last line of “The New Colossus,” the poem engraved in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. His amplified words carried over a cheering crowd of thousands packed into Battery Park in downtown Manhattan. Their mittened hands lifted signs that read “No Ban, No Wall” and “Patrol White Supremacy, Not Borders”.

Mr Espaillat, the first Dominican-American member of Congress, came to America as an undocumented immigrant. Behind him, in New York Harbour, stood Ellis Island and Lady Liberty herself.

In his first weeks as a congressman Espaillat has emerged as a vocal critic of President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.

The 2008 financial crisis is long over, but its damaging effect on Hispanic families lingers in a pair of grim statistics: More Latinos are choosing to rent than to buy a home, and Hispanic homeownership rates are still in decline even nine years later. Homeownership, an important measure of wealth and middle-class status, has decreased 5 percent among Hispanics since its peak in 2007, according to a recent Pew Research study. In 2007, 49.7 percent of Latino households owned their homes, compared with 47 percent today.

On Tuesday, Adriano Espaillat made history when he was sworn in as the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented immigrant in Congress. “It was always my aspiration to come to the U.S. Congress,” Espaillat told NBC Latino in a Facebook video posted Wednesday. The video shares a bit of the congressman’s background from his childhood in the Dominican Republic to the nation’s social climate (Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War) when he arrived at nine years old.

Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican American congressman, hopes his background as a formerly undocumented immigrant will help find him common ground with his colleagues on immigration policy.