Democrats Thursday rallied behind Rep. Adriano Espaillat after a Republican group branded the trailblazing Harlem lawmaker as an “illegal immigrant.”
Home Minority Chief Rep. Hakeem Jeffries led a refrain of Democratic outrage over the jab geared toward Espaillat, a naturalized U.S. citizen who is just the primary member of Congress born within the Dominican Republic and the one one ever to be an undocumented immigrant.
“These people are disgusting,” Jeffries tweeted.
The Nationwide Republican Congressional Marketing campaign lobbed the “illegal” insult at Espaillat after he was chosen to present the Spanish-language response to President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.
“Democrats literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump’s address,” the NRCC wrote on its official Twitter feed. “Democrats couldn’t be more disconnected from the American people.”
Espaillat, 70, was a toddler when he and his household overstayed a vacationer visa many years in the past. However they acquired everlasting residency inside a yr.
A five-term lawmaker who gained his deep-blue central Harlem seat after longtime Rep. Charles Rangel retired in 2016, Espaillat chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and proudly labels himself a “former undocumented immigrant turned progressive Congressman.”
A spokesperson for the NRCC defended its assertion about Espaillat as “facts” and stated Democrats ought to focus their outrage on crime and border safety.
However even some Republicans weren’t pleased with the nasty gibe. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) known as the tweet “inappropriate.”
“(Espaillat is) a good friend and a colleague — and more importantly a strong voice for his community and the Latino community, especially his beloved Dominican-American community,” Lawler stated
Tensions round immigration are larger than ever as Trump has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in what he calls the biggest deportation effort in U.S. historical past.
Immigration advocates name the crackdown merciless and wrongheaded and warn that many Latino U.S. residents will doubtless endure violations of their civil rights and probably even get mistakenly deported.
Initially Revealed: March 6, 2025 at 1:34 PM EST
