Pablo Manríquez

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On November 23, Apple sent 14 El Faro journalists a warning: “state-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone” because of “who you are and what you do.”

“We will no longer accept being a country that accepts our labor, but doesn’t accept our humanity and dignity,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in Spanish at an immigration rally on Monday. “We’re almost two years now into a pandemic where our country relies on undocumented people to survive.”

“As someone who has observed the evolution of relations between the United States and Cuba for nearly 50 years, I find the situation between our two countries today bewildering, tragic, and frankly exasperating,” said the 81-year-old Senator.

“All my content is in Spanish and related to immigration issues here,” said 22-year-old Carlos Eduardo Espina, who was teaching in-person citizenship classes to immigrants in 2019 when he had the idea to teach the same classes but on TikTok.

“We need workers in this economy,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told Latino Rebels. “(If) you want to grow the GDP then workers are at the heart of that. And this is one path to get the workers here in the United States able to come out of the shadows, take these jobs, pay taxes, and help us grow the economy.”

Senators returned to Capitol Hill on Monday to speculation over what comes next in immigration relief negotiations concerning the Build Back Better Act, which passed the House on November 19 but did not include a pathway to citizenship.

Capitol Police expect to log 9,000 death threats against members of Congress this year, many of them aimed at members of the ‘the Squad,’ a group of six young Democrats of color who have become icons for progressives and many communities of color.

Immigration advocates got a rare, if uneven policy win Friday when the House of Representatives voted 220-213 to pass a hard-fought version of the Build Back Better Act that includes a mixed bag of relief provisions facing an uncertain future in the Senate.

“There are certain advocacy groups, national organizations, that may have a footprint here in Washington but do not have a presence in immigrant communities,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with Latino Rebels on Monday evening at the Capitol.

Santos Núñez laments the fact that there are not more Afro-Latinas and LGTBQ Hill staffers like her. “I’ve only met four other Afro-Latinas in all of Congress,” said Santos Núñez, who is the programming director for the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association and a member of the Congressional Black Associates.

Donald Trump over-performed with Latino and Latina voters during the 2020 election. Latino Rebels asked both Latinos in the Senate GOP caucus, Marco Rubio (FL) and Ted Cruz (TX), to explain the rightward shift in Latino voters during last year’s presidential election.

Immigrant rights organizers say alt-right instigators arrived Tuesday night at their ongoing 11-day protest in Times Square looking to intimidate undocumented rally-goers.

After weeks of negotiations, the long-promised pathway to citizenship has been removed from the House spending bill, replaced by immigrant parole. Washington correspondent Pablo Manríquez walks us through how it happened.

Democrats in Congress are divided over whether Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough can render an impartial judgment on immigrant relief proposals after Latino Rebels published a report Monday showing that MacDonough likely worked as an immigration prosecutor in the late nineties.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Latino Rebels on Wednesday afternoon that Green Card reform provisions in the House version of the Build Back Better Act might be submitted for Parliamentarian review.

Last week the Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair spoke at length with reporters of her “four priorities in the care bucket” for the Build Back Better Act, leaving off the fifth priority listed by her caucus back in April: a pathway to citizenship.

“As someone who has worked to deport people, [MacDonough] cannot be trusted to rule objectively on immigration issues,” the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) said last Thursday in a statement.

New Immigrant Community Empowerment is planning an 11-day protest in Times Square calling on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) to include a pathway to citizenship in the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s social spending bill.

“The framework includes a separate $100 billion investment in immigration reform that is consistent with the Senate’s reconciliation rules,” a White House fact sheet on the bill published Thursday morning said.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) is leading a third proposal to the Senate Parliamentarian for including immigrant relief in the Build Back Better Act (BBB), Joe Biden’s signature social spending bill. The third proposal (“Plan C”) will most likely be delivered to the Parliamentarian on Friday but could come as late as next week.

In July, Latino Rebels began asking members of Congress to explain the rightward shift in Latino voters during last year’s presidential election. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) was the first Congressional Hispanic Caucus member asked.