I am a working-class Afro-Latina based in Harlem and I come from a working class immigrant family. My dad is a truck driver – his dad was a truck driver– and my mom, a single mother, worked at various organizations as a case manager but took on extra work, like cleaning and selling Mary Kay products to help pay the bills. My mother’s father was part of the resistance against Trujillo and Balaguer, two US-backed dictators who stole his youth. My mom has childhood memories of him having to go into hiding to avoid being detained or tortured or worse. Like most families who come from countries and eras where these types of brutal regimes terrorized their communities, my family does not often like to discuss this period. But since launching this campaign, my family has said to me, “If only your grandfather could see you for a day.” Because they know, as I know, that we are facing a similar crisis here, in the US, today. 

I have been organizing for a fairer, more equitable, and more affordable New York City since I was a teenager. Growing up I visited NYC often as I had family here. At 18, I moved to the district as a student at Columbia University where I became an organizer advocating to end sexual violence on campus, fighting my school’s role in displacing communities of color, and demanding divestment from Israeli apartheid. After graduating, I organized against mass incarceration and to support New Yorkers through various mutual aid and direct action campaigns with BYP100. As an organizer at Families for Freedom and beyond, I worked to free people from ICE detention and advocate for a more just immigration system. Finally, since the onset of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, I have been a part of numerous direct and mass civil disobedience actions and advocacy efforts demanding an end to the genocide and calling for a full arms embargo on Israel. As a PhD candidate in sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, I spent many years as an educator at Lehman College, NYU, and Barnard. My doctoral research has focused on the criminalization of migrants, the U.S. deportation regime and the role and history of Anti-Black racism inherent to the “national security” project that is our immigration system. I am currently a public defense investigator at the Neighborhood Defenders Services of Harlem. Now I’m running for Congress in NY-13 to ensure we provide housing for all, end childhood poverty by investing in our babies, not bombs, and abolish ICE once and for all.

Adriano Espaillat is currently a five-term incumbent Congressman representing NY-13. Under his watch – now as the Ranking member of Housing, Construction & Community Development – housing prices have skyrocketed, as he has received thousands of dollars from real estate developers and Columbia University (the largest private landowner in New York City). As the inequality between the richest and poorest Americans continues to grow at an alarming rate, Espaillat does not believe in taxing the rich – as evinced by his lack of support for the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, and Stop Wall Street Looting Act, nor has he been willing to stand with working people. When NYSNA nurses went on strike, he offered tepid support only after I showed up to the picket line and spoke to nurses to uplift their demands. Many of his donors are on the boards of the private hospitals these nurses were striking. 

Despite being the chair of the CHC, Espaillat has failed to take meaningful action on immigration reform and has consistently been absent when immigrant families seek his support. When my friend and fellow organizer, Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped by ICE, in this very district, Espaillat twice refused to meet with his family and many of our friends. Just 8 days later the Trump administration, in violation of judicial orders, deported over 200 Venezuelan migrants to a concentration camp in El Salvador. Espaillat’s inaction on Mahmoud’s case and the case of many other Columbia University students living in NY-13. His indifference to these student organizers and his silence on how Columbia University has targeted students and faculty condemning the genocide in Gaza has opened the door to the Trump administration’s the current weaponization of ICE as a cudgel for facism and attacks on higher education. Even now, despite immigration being a top concern for people in NY-13, and 77% of Democrats supporting calls to abolish ICE, my opponent refuses to take a strong stance and demand ICE be abolished. And, in the face of ICE terrorizing our communities, Espaillat has called for increased training and hiring standards for ICE and refocusing on public safety.

This is a winnable district. We know this firstly because Zohran won this district in 2025 by 19 points and fundamentally changed the voting bloc in upper Manhattan and the Bronx. There was a record turnout in this district, with 33k new voters who have never voted in a primary coming out to the polls. Espaillat knows this, which is why he flipped his endorsement from Cuomo in the primary to Zohran in the general. He knows that he is vulnerable. Second, Espaillat has a ceiling of support. He has far less name recognition and district support than he would like to believe. An outside poll in January showed that he only had 41% on a blind ask shows how vulnerable he is. 

We plan to win this race by putting together a coalition that can raise over 1 million (we are on track to meet this goal), and can deliver a strong field operation to drive up voter outreach and turnout. We have received an incredible outpouring of support. I’ve been endorsed by NYC-DSA, UAW, Justice Democrats, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Sunrise Movement, CAIR Action, Track AIPAC, PAL PAC, USCPR, Claire Valdez, Jamaal Bowman, Jabari Brisport, Diana Moreno, Sarahana Shrestha, Emily Gallagher, and Chi Osse.

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I’ve been a community organizer my entire adult life. I’ve organized to end mass incarceration, for immigration justice, and for Palestinian human rights and liberation. I’ve built community by working as part of and alongside numerous community groups and organizations to build out campaigns that demand divestment from Israeli apartheid, sought the release of people detained in ICE detention facilities, provided critical mutual aid to economically vulnerable Black New Yorkers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, advocated to end housing discrimination against system impacted people, called for an arms embargo on Israel and an end to its genocide against the Palestinian people. I have been very vocal on these issues by writing publicly about them and speaking to the press; leading community teach-ins and trainings; helping to organize mass rallies, civil disobedience protests, and direct actions; and incorporating my values into every facet of my personal and professional life. As a PhD Candidate in Sociology, I think a lot about the social systems and structures that impact how people interact with the world around them. So when Justice Democrats reached out to tell me I’d been nominated to run for Congress, I asked them why they thought I was the right candidate. Their answer, that I’d been so public with my values for so long, made me realize that the organizing work I was doing was important not only for its own sake, but because I was also inadvertently creating a system of accountability to my values and to my community.

I have been a grassroots organizer my entire adult life, and will continue to organize in Congress to make the lives of New Yorkers more affordable. I am running on a platform of: housing for all, abolishing ICE, and investing in our babies, not bombs. I also believe in working to build a society in which governing systems foster racial, social, and economic justice. I am a proud supporter of taxing the rich, to provide Medicare for all, for expanding social security and the child tax credit and providing universal free college, for increasing the minimum wage and the Green New Deal, and for safeguarding American democracy by removing money from our political process.