DEMOCRAT Jessica Cisneros is running for a congressional seat in the 28th district of Texas.
She is running against conservative bipartisan Democrat Henry Cuellar who currently holds the congressional seat.
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Who is Jessica Cisneros?
Jessica Cisneros is a Mexican-American immigration and human rights attorney and is now running for Congress in the 2022 elections.
She is originally from Laredo, Texas where her family moved from Mexico after her sister became severely ill for treatment only the US could offer.
Her father worked on a farm picking fruit and later started his own trucking business to keep their family afloat and fund Cisneros and her sister’s schooling.
While attending the University of Texas School of Law, Cisneros worked with the faculty to create the Women in Immigration Detention Assistance Project.
The project worked to provide opportunities to assist those seeking asylum in the US at the Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas.
Her inspiration to pursue immigration law came from watching her parents struggle to obtain health care and benefits after moving to the US.
She received her law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and received the Law Fellowships Excellence in Public Interest Award, the Pro Bono Award, the Chicano/Hispanic Law Students’ Association’s Spirit of Community Award, and the Dean’s Achievement Award for most outstanding student in the field of Immigration Law, according to her website.
Cisneros ran against Cuellar in the 2020 Congressional elections but lost against the conservative Democrat who remains the last anti-abortion critic in the party.
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What are her policies?
Cisneros is fighting for support for US veterans, expanding social security benefits, and others including:
- Healthcare – Ensure all citizens receive healthcare and strengthen medicare for all including eliminating premiums and deductibles and expanding coverage to include dental, hearing, vision, and mental health.
- Immigration – Create an easier pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- Reproduction Rights – Provide quality reproductive care and increased access to abortion.
- Voting Rights – Increased support of the For The People Act increasing voting access and allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.
- Economic Justice – Increased labor laws that will allow workers to negotiate for safer working conditions, increased pay, and benefits.
- Gun Violence – Instate more background checks for those purchasing guns and ban bump stocks, high-capacity magazines, and weapons of war.
- Renewable Energy – Support for the Green New Deal that will transition to renewable energy using wind and solar power to reduce the cost of the renewable energy grid.
- Education – Implement universal pre-K, tuition-free public college and trade school, and eliminate student debt.
- And more…
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What has Jessica Cisneros said about running in the Congressional election?
Cisneros and Cuellar are going toe-to-toe in they ran in the 2020 election.
Cuellar has claimed that Cisneros will “defund the police and border control” and strongly opposes her stance on abortion and “women’s right to choose.”
However, Cisneros told The Guardian, “What folks were telling us over and over and over again was that you know, the way things are right now isn’t working, and that they want a different version – an alternative version – of what south Texas can look like because they felt like they were being taken for granted.”
She added, “When we’re talking about increasing the minimum wage and Medicare for All, they’re kitchen-table issues that, you know, people are much more concerned about.
“… Change doesn’t happen overnight. Every little thing that we’re doing every single day, I mean, is helping us build a brighter future.
“But I do know that when we win on 24 May, I really hope that it is the beginning of change in south Texas.”
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