Latino Rebels DC

Support is growing in Congress for the “Day Without Immigrants” protest planned for Monday, February 14. The rationale behind the protest led by TikTok star Carlos Eduardo Espina is that immigrant labor underwrites Valentine’s Day every year.

The renegade Instagram account now boasts over 75,00 followers, nearly three times the following they had a week ago.

On Wednesday, Latino Rebels asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for an update on immigration reform and her view on the planned “Day Without Immigrants” protest on February 14.

Carlos Eduardo Espina has over 2.4 million followers on TikTok and over 88,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. Now the 23-year-old is asking immigrants, in Spanish and English, to disrupt Valentine’s Day this year by not showing up to work, school, or the stores.

Forty-one GoFundMe campaigns have raised an average of $110,761 each, totaling $4,412,818 for families of deceased Indian immigrants stuck in decades-long green card backlogs, who are then forced to self-deport when the relative sponsoring a family visa suddenly dies.

The Senate returned to Capitol Hill on Monday following a bombshell report in the New Yorker that identified three top Biden White House officials as bulwarks of former President Donald Trump’s harsh enforcement policies against immigrants.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that made sexual harassment an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the legal framework that governs members of the United States armed services.

On Tuesday, Latino Rebels asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about President Biden’s willingness to take unilateral action on immigrant relief, such as reallocating unused green cards from past years.

Last week, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus went public with letters sent on January 14 to the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok “respectfully requesting a meeting” to discuss Spanish-language misinformation on their platforms.

On Friday, reporters staked out at the Kentuckians for Better Transportation annual event in Louisville asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to clarify controversial remarks he made at a press conference earlier in the week when asked by Latino Rebels about voting rights.

Republican Senators told Latino Rebels throughout the day that voters of color are foolish to believe that the restrictive voting laws passed by their party in state legislatures over the past few years will inhibit the ability of voters of color to cast ballots.

“Not just my staff,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) when asked about the student debt born by her team. “The people of Nevada, people I know, my family members. And I think there definitely is a concern we have in this country about high student debt.”

On Sunday it was reported that Jamal Simmons, Vice President Harris’ newly appointed communications director, donated $250 to Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign in 2015, which again raised questions concerning the embattled White House aide.

Employment records obtained by Latino Rebels show that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough worked at not one but two immigrant detention centers for Immigration and Naturalization Services, the agency that once managed the federal deportation workload now tasked to ICE.

The resurfaced tweet is the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks for the Office of the Vice President, which has been hampered by leaks, snafus, and other staffing setbacks in the first year of the Joe Biden administration.

In some Senate offices, the phones never stop ringing thanks to a green card backlog advocacy movement seeking answers and pushing for immigrant relief.

“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.