Rep. Adriano Espaillat is fighting to keep his seat in New York’s 13th Congressional district race amid an increasingly hectic atmosphere leading up to the state’s June primaries. However, he has found allies among other New York City political peers, who are backing his re-election bid in what has become a field with eight other candidates running for his spot, which he inherited from the late Rep. Charles B. Rangel.
“In Congress, Adriano has been a champion for immigrant communities and a determined fighter for working families,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, WHIP Katherine Clark, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, who all have endorsed Espaillat in his re-election campaign as of last week, in a joint statement. “At a moment when so many immigrant communities are under attack, we need leaders like Adriano, who as chair of the CHC has acted decisively and effectively to confront the Trump administration’s disastrous policies on the House floor, at ICE detention facilities, and in the courts,” they said. Despite these endorsements, Espaillat, 71, is facing not only other contenders, but issues in and outside of New York that stand to affect the 13th Congressional District because of Trump administration policy and the abrupt political changes of the last month.
Espaillat is the first Dominican American to serve in Congress. He was first elected in 2016 and currently chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. His district covers predominantly Black and Latino communities, including much of Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, Hamilton Heights, Marble Hill, and parts of the western Bronx.
He said that issues with ICE have certainly affected his district. Harlem is home to many African immigrants and Washington Heights is home to many Dominican immigrants, he said.
“… There’s a chilling effect out there. ICE is patrolling our commercial arteries, and one cannot go out to shop or go to church, or visit a family member, so this has a profound impact way beyond the immigration issue,” said Espaillat. “It has an impact on our local economy.”
Recently, Espaillat said he and his colleagues are trying to make sure that more funding does not go toward the ICE agency through the reconciliation process. Congress gave about $170 billion to ICE last year. This year, whether the Trump administration would get about $70 billion more in funding through 2029 has been up in the air for the last several months.
“They want to fund it for the next decade, taking money away from Medicaid, from the SNAP program, from basic services, from NYCHA on repairs,” he said. “That is the gravity of this, and Hakeem Jeffries, who’s endorsing me, and our party understand that. That’s why we will continue to fight back, as they continue to increase funding for ICE to unprecedented levels.”
From ICE to voting rights
In addition to a continued fight against an ICE occupation in New York City, many Black and Latino lawmakers are grappling with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Louisiana redistricting case to essentially decimate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a result, many southern states, like Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, have started redrawing their own maps in an effort to wipe out all-Black congressional districts. This could have a severe impact on the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses.
Espaillat estimates at least 20 members of the Black Caucus and at least a dozen Latino members from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which he chairs, could be in danger of being eliminated. He is deeply concerned that Black and Brown voters will not have adequate representation and the country will regress into a Jim Crow era of gerrymandering.
“That is real serious because we’re poised to have the first African American speaker in the House of Representatives,” said Espaillat, “and for him not to have the backup from the communities that have helped elevate him to that important position, I think, is a problem. We need to have his back.”
He added: “New York State is not exempt from any national effort to stack the deck against people of color, so we must be vigilant. We must hold our legislators accountable, including members of Congress, and we must make sure that the state legislature advances laws that prevent ‘cracking and packing’ from occurring, and that we at a federal level ensure that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act legislation is pushed forward.”