Latino Rebels DC

The Biden White House announced Thursday that the United States will accept 100,000 refugees from Ukraine. The announcement came after over a year of leveraging former President Donald Trump’s racist immigration policies to deny entry to millions of non-white immigrants.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants won legal entry to the United States only to have their hopes dashed by then-President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. Since then, immigration attorneys have spent countless hours and large sums of money lobbying Congress for diversity visa backlog relief, but to no avail.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who sits on the Judiciary Committee currently holding a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, told Latino Rebels on Wednesday that he doesn’t employ any Black women on his staff or thinks it’s necessary for informing his decisions.

With Puerto Rico statehood unlikely and a self-determination bill stalled, independence for the U.S. territory remains off the radar of the United States Senate.

The Instagram account “Dear White Staffers” sent an updated whip count of House members who co-sponsored the PRO Act, a bill that would strengthen unions generally, but have not signed onto a resolution to empower unions in Congressional offices.

A year after being re-introduced in the House and Senate, a Puerto Rico self-determination bill appears ready to die on the vine again in the current Congress.

In eight months, I will be forced to leave not only my home of 20 years, but also my mom who is my only family left,” said 23-year-old Athulya Rajakumar in her testimony on Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee on immigration.

The bill increases ICE’s overall funding by $284.7 million, including a $57 million increase for the controversial Enforcement and Removal Operations division of the agency responsible for the detention and removal of immigrants.

The new appropriations, if enacted, would also increase the amount of funding available in each Congressional office for paying interns from $25,000 to $35,000 per year.

Five Democratic senators introduced legislation on Monday that, if enacted, would provide sweeping relief to millions of immigrants in green card backlogs.

Funding for paid internships at the State Department has been removed from the Senate version of the 2022 appropriations bill currently being negotiated in the upper chamber of Congress.

Ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening, Latino Rebels asked 14 senators whether they supported statehood for Puerto Rico, a U.S. colonial possession since the 1800s.

Capitol Hill is abuzz with whispers about Jamarcus Purley, a Black legislative correspondent fired by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) last month. Purley shares his story with Latino Rebels.

Less than a month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) told Latino Rebels that they support staffers looking to unionize their workplaces, a resolution has been introduced by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) to formalize worker rights.

Seventy members of the New York City-based New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) traveled to Washington, D.C. on Monday with a message for President Joe Biden ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union Address.

Sixty-six members of the House of Representatives who co-sponsored the Protecting the Right to Organize Act last year have yet to support a resolution by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) that would create a legal framework for Hill staffers to unionize their offices in Congress.

“The part of the district I’m running for has been my home since birth. My dad grew up there. My grandmother and grandfather came here through the bracero program and set down roots in L.A.,” Nicole López, 27, tells Latino Rebels. “My district has a lot of heart. We work really hard.”

“As a Brown person, they told me I couldn’t cover my community, unlike my white counterparts who were allowed to cover their community,” says Montesinos. “Things like that were disappointing to me, so I began thinking where else can I make a difference.”

As unionization efforts by Congressional staffers continue on Capitol Hill, Latino Rebels asked senators this week the best way for staffers to approach them about forming a union.

There remains no formal legally recognized right for Congressional staffers to unionize, at least not one that has been implemented, though there is a framework in the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 that remains unimplemented. Still, a strike by Hill staffers would be unprecedented.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Momentum continues on Capitol Hill to unionize Congressional offices after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) said last week that if staffers want to unionize, they would support their efforts.