Latino Rebels DC

Patience with Joseph V. Cuffari is growing thin in Congress and at the White House, with sources telling Latino Rebels that the embattled Department of Homeland Security Inspector General has embarrassed the agency, snubbed the White House, and fueled a lack of faith in Congress about his ability to continue in the role.

Latino Rebels asked senators this week whether transgender rights come up in conversations with their colleagues and if they themselves know any transgender people. Twenty-one senators were asked in consultation with transgender reporters and gender-beat reporters who couldn’t make it to the Capitol.

A bipartisan group of four senators —two Democrats and two Republicans— have been meeting to find consensus on an immigration bill that can get 60 votes to pass the Senate. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) gives Latino Rebels an outline of those discussions.

Even if the Puerto Rico Status Act passes the House —which is far from certain— it would still need to pass the Senate, where 60 votes are required to break a filibuster. If it doesn’t pass Congress, then there will be no binding plebiscite, currently scheduled for November 5, 2023.

Latino Rebels speaks with Luisana Pérez Fernández, the White House director of Hispanic media, about her life and career after immigrating to Miami from Venezuela in 2011.

Following a press conference on Thursday, members of the House negotiating team behind a potential consensus bill on Puerto Rico’s status released what is likely a messaging bill meant to act as a framework for further negotiations and their outcome.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Jenniffer González Colón, tell Latino Rebels that, despite their opposing perspectives on Puerto Rico’s status question, there are at least two areas of common ground driving the negotiations on a consensus bill.

A consensus bill to determine the future of Puerto Rico’s status is imminent, Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) said, but sources close to the matter tell Latino Rebels that no draft has been circulated to the key stakeholders in the process and that the tense negotiations over the bill’s language have hit a series of dead ends.

Less than a year after receiving formal approval, the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, a group looking to increase the number of progressive staffers working in Congress, is seeing its membership swell.

After a resolution to protect Hill staffers from retaliation for organizing a union in their offices had been adopted by the House on Tuesday night, a number of Congress members tell Latino Rebels they expect their offices to unionize.

As a national labor shortage is contributing to higher prices on consumer goods and increased inflation, some senators tell Latino Rebels that increasing legal immigration can help undermine these economic pressures on the American economy, while others are not so convinced.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) is expected to negotiate immigrant relief into a bipartisan immigration bill with Senate Republicans, but Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the most senior Latino in the Senate, expressed doubts that reform will pass this year.

After news broke Monday of a looming Supreme Court decision to overturn ‘Roe v. Wade,’ Democrats vowed to introduce legislation codifying abortion rights. But without filibuster reform, they are unlikely to secure the 60 votes needed to pass such a bill.

On Saturday, for the first time at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a Latino journalist, Serafín “Fin” Gómez, sat at the president’s table along with other guests of honor. Gómez is the new political director for CBS News and the first Latino named to the board of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari should resign, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Latino Rebels on Wednesday in response to news that Cuffari omitted hundreds of cases of domestic violence from a report on sexual misconduct at the department. “I saw serious problems with this particular inspector general long […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigrant relief provisions in the America COMPETES Act, which passed the House in February, are now being debated in the Senate where they face a divided Republican caucus. At issue is whether the bill will do two things: create a special visa category for immigrant entrepreneurs exempt immigrants with doctorates and master’s […]

Restaurant Associates, the company that manages Senate cafeteria workers, confirmed on Friday that the layoffs announced a week ago have been canceled.

A look at the moments during and after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed by a 53-47 vote in the Senate, making her the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.

On Friday, workers at the Dirksen Café were told by management that there would be mass layoffs on April 15. The workers tell Latino Rebels that 81 employees of Restaurant Associates, the federal contractor that runs the Senate cafeterias, are on the chopping block.

At least two senators were accosted at lunchtime on Wednesday by Capitol cafeteria workers demanding answers to what they say has been a heavy-handed unionization push by Local 23, which represents over 25,000 hospitality workers in 12 states and the District of Columbia.

Despite the legislative setbacks to level the playing field for undocumented immigrants, Patrica Ordaz remains committed to empowering staffers in any way she can. It was to this end that last month, the formerly undocumented immigrant born in Mexico City was elected president of the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association.