America just elected its first formerly undocumented immigrant to Congress
Not only did America elect its first Latina senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, to office Tuesday, it also elected its first formerly undocumented immigrant to Congress.
Adriano Espaillat was elected to the House of Representatives for New York's 13th congressional district. The Democratic candidate received 89 percent of the vote, beating Republican Tony Evans' 7 percent. The district represents parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx including Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Upper West Side.
Espaillat promised in a speech during the summer's Democratic National Convention to be "the first member of Congress who was once undocumented as an immigrant." He defiantly added: "You take that, Donald Trump!"
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Espaillat is also the first Dominican-American to be elected to Congress. Watch the speech below. Ricky Soberano
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Ricky Soberano is the social media editor at TheWeek.com. Her writing has appeared in Complex, Nylon, Gothamist, Maxim, and others. Previously she was the culture editor for The Stony Brook Press and contributing editor for The Odyssey. She has a B.A. in multidisciplinary studies in journalism and dance from Stony Brook University and an A.S. in dance from Queensborough Community College. She's lived in Brooklyn her whole life, eats too much ramen, and freelance models, and she enjoys writing about the undiscovered and underreported within the sphere of culture. Follow her on Twitter.
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