In The News

New York City has stood firm with our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico and the surrounding devastated areas to ensure access for affected families to FEMA resources and other emergency services dedicated to helping them rebuild their lives. My office has just been informed that FEMA will evacuate nearly 90 families who received temporary housing throughout New York City after Hurricane Maria, and these families will immediately lose their Transient Shelter Assistance (TSA) benefits and be asked to withdraw from their temporary hotels on April 21, which is almost a month before the anticipated deadline of May 14. I contacted FEMA and will send a letter urging that the moving date be extended to allow these affected families the opportunity to make a proper transition to long-term housing, as they are still suffering from seizures and side effects. caused by the storm to your daily life.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, told The Fix that other issues in addition to the deal's handling of DACA led him to vote against it in the House before it went to the Senate. “I voted against the deal because there was no fix for DACA and it fails to do enough to support or protect DREAMers, but also because it did not include any funding for disaster relief in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and many of my constituents have family members in those communities,” he said.

As the most unproductive congressional year in recent history winds down, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will be under tremendous pressure to pass an omnibus spending package that keeps the federal government open beyond Dec. 8, when the current funding authority expires. With a 239 member majority, Republicans should not need any help from Democrats to pass this bill. Yet, if anything has been made clear over the past ten months, it is the utter inability of Republicans and their president to lead. Republicans currently control all branches of government, including both houses of Congress. Under normal circumstances, this would mean a strong, unified collective governing body. But these aren’t normal circumstances and, so far this year, Republicans have needed significant help from House Democrats to pass funding legislation to keep the government open. If Speaker Ryan does not call a vote on the DREAM Act (H.R. 3440) as a standalone bill, which would pass with bipartisan support, then he has two ways to approach the pending funding vote. First, he can choose to coalesce his Republican colleagues, including the extreme factions, and enact a hardline budget that drastically cuts funding for essential programs, all while attempting to increase funding for the unpopular border wall. With this, the Speaker would appease a small group of lawmakers at the expense – literally – of most Americans, which is a huge risk that would place Republicans in a difficult position heading into an election year.

After Verizon's decision to remove Univision from Verizon Fios, AT&T recently decided to remove Televisión Dominicana from U-Verse and DIRECTV, which is their only channel that services the Dominican community, leaving viewers who were depending on the channel for news and updates in the dark. Not surprisingly, AT&T’s actions have provoked concern and outrage among Hispanic leaders. "Despite our best efforts to negotiate continued distribution, AT&T's proposals made access to Televisión Dominicana limited and more expensive for the Dominican community," said a spokesman for the channel. According to The Business in Television "There are 2.3 million Dominicans living in the United States, the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population, but AT&T and DIRECTV carry other networks targeting smaller population groups. Among those are three channels from Spain provided by a company partnered with DIRECTV, including the channel that replaced Televisión Dominicana." In the latest of a series of actions, Congress member Adriano Espaillat - the first Dominican-American in Congress - called on the Boards of both AT&T and Time Warner to consider the importance of Televisión Dominicana in the lives of countless Dominican Americans in light of the proposed merger between the two companies.