Monday Immigration Bulletin: Immigrants for Mike Lee

Good afternoon! Backlog immigrants posted a new video in support of Senator Mike Lee, as two Latina immigrants campaign as disruptors for Congress in Texas and Pennsylvania. Here’s your Monday immigration bulletin -

Immigrants for Lee

Green card backlog immigrants are hopeful that Senator Mike Lee will finally return to the legislation he helped negotiate in the 116th Congress.

Immigration Voice, a group seeking to eliminate country-caps on employment based visas, has even posted a video featuring immigrants praising the Utah Republican for his past support of backlog relief legislation.

Publicly, Lee has kept mum during the current Congress on whether he still supports the Eagle Act. The two-term senator is up for reelection tomorrow in a race he is expected to win against the Democratic candidate, former CIA operations officer Evan McMullin.

Several backlogged immigrants I spoke with over the weekend believe that if Lee beats McMullin, the xenophobic pressures of campaigning for Senate as a Republican will be lifted … and that Lee will finally join Senators Kevin Cramer (ND), Susan Collins (ME), John Hickenlooper (CO), and Tammy Baldwin (WI) to support the bill he once championed.

Cramer introduced the Eagle Act in the Senate on July 20, 2022, less than a month after a founder of Immigration Voice donated to the North Dakota Republican’s reelection campaign. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced its companion bill in the House in June 2022.

You can watch the Immigration Voice video here.

Midterms Spotlight: Two Latina Immigrants

Tomorrow is election day in what has been a brutal political campaign cycle rife with mainstream xenophobia. Outlined against such an antagonizing backdrop, it would be almost ironic if two Latina immigrants made history by winning their races during the 2022 midterm.

The first is an immigrant from Mexico: Mayra Flores from Texas’ 34th congressional district. Liberals have painted Flores as a border hawk, pointing to her enforcement-related rhetoric that aligns roughly with that of Donald Trump and other MAGA candidates.

The truth about Flores’ views on immigration are likely more nuanced. She is one one of two immigrants from Mexico serving in the current Congress. The other being Chicago Democrat Chuy Garcia.

Flores came to Capitol Hill after winning a special election to replace retiring Democrat Filemon Vela, a monumental political feat making Flores the first Republican to represent her district since 1871.

Since coming to Capitol Hill, Flores has broken somewhat with some of the GOP’s most-extreme rhetoric about immigrants, telling reporters in September that it is “so important for me to focus on legal immigration and improving the legal process.”

Last month, I wrote about the GOP’s Latina House candidate’s in South Texas in The New Republic. You can read the article here. The important thing to note is that, for better or worse, if Flores wins in south Texas she will be an important immigration voice in Congress.

Not only is Flores an immigrant, but she hails from the region at the epicenter of President Joe Biden’s most-negative headline during his presidency so far: the southern border with Mexico. Whether Flores will push relief policies alongside her immigration enforcement rhetoric is an open question.

Another Latina immigrant running hard for Congress during this midterm is Giselle Barreto Fetterman, the wife of the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania. 

Of course, Mrs. Fetterman is not running to be senator, but she has taken an increased role as her husband’s spokesperson during the six months since Democratic candidate John Fetterman suffered a stroke on the campaign trail.

An immigrant from Brazil who came to the United States undocumented, Mrs. Fetterman told me in September that she and her husband would be strong proponents of relief policies if they win their senate race against television personality Mehmet Oz.

The Pennsylvania Senate race has been a nail biter so far, with polls swinging back and forth between the two candidates. If Fetterman wins, his wife won’t be the only immigrant spouse in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is famously married to former U.S. transportation secretary Elaine Chao, an immigrant from Taiwan.

However, Mrs. Fetterman would be the first formerly undocumented spouse in Senate history, arriving with a perspective that is largely absent in the Capitol. Undocumented immigrants are prohibited from working as Hill staffers. Even DACA recipients who can work legally face restrictions on their ability to work as staffers on the policies that will determine their fate in the United States.

If her husband wins his race, Mrs. Fetterman could be a key ambassador to immigrant communities in the next Congress, especially undocumented folks and their families who have been almost entirely ignored by lawmakers during the current Congress.

Humble Brag

The first profile I’ve written in a while comes out tomorrow in The New Republic. It’s a fun piece about some smart youths doing good work in election forecasting. I’ll share it on Twitter when it’s live…

News Clips

• “Can Democrats and Republicans Find A Way Forward on Immigration?” - THE NEW YORK TIMES
• “What Prevents Immigrants From Applying for Citizenship?” - MERIDIAN RECORD JOURNAL

THANK YOU to everyone who has subscribed and/or increased your subscription to Pablo Reports. I’m touched by the support for my fiercely independent reporting effort on the immigration beat. Keep sending me your tips! Happy election day tomorrow to those who celebrate!