Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is hammering the Republicans’ marketing campaign arm for falsely characterizing a Hispanic member of Congress as “an illegal immigrant.”
The Nationwide Republican Marketing campaign Committee (NRCC) on Wednesday blasted a message on social media attacking Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), who’s a U.S. citizen, over his essential response to President Trump’s speech to Congress the evening earlier than.
“Democrats literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump’s address,” the NRCC posted on the social platform X. “Predictably, this radical called Trump’s presidency a ‘reign of terror.’”
“Democrats couldn’t be more disconnected from the American people.”
Jeffries, who additionally hails from New York Metropolis, wasted no time responding to the smear with a barb of his personal.
“These people are disgusting,” he wrote on X.
Espaillat, 70, was born within the Dominican Republic in 1954 and immigrated to america along with his household a decade later. The household overstayed its vacationer visa and lived within the nation with out correct paperwork for a time, then obtained inexperienced playing cards inside a 12 months of the expiration. He grew to become a citizen earlier than the age of 30 and was first elected to the Home in 2016, turning into the primary previously undocumented immigrant to affix Congress.
In the beginning of this 12 months, Espaillat grew to become head of the Congressional Hispanic Congress (CHC), which put out its personal assertion attacking the NRCC’s false characterization.
“The xenophobic rhetoric from Trump Republicans proves that you can follow the law, get your papers, become a citizen, get elected to Congress — swear multiple oaths to protect and defend the Constitution — and all you will ever be to Trump Republicans: an ‘illegal immigrant,’” the group posted on X.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for the NRCC defended the preliminary assertion as “facts” and dismissed the criticisms, saying Democrats ought to focus their outrage as a substitute towards points reminiscent of public security.
“Democrats caring more about policing words and fighting facts instead of policing our border and fighting crime shows just how out of touch they are,” the spokesperson mentioned in an e mail.
