For Rep. Delia Ramirez, Trump’s mass deportation plan is personal

Her spouse was undocumented when she entered Congress. Ramirez’s experiences with the nation’s broken immigration system will shape Democrats’ resistance to Trump's proposed policies.

By Mel Leonor Barclay, for The 19th

Rep. Delia Ramirez spent the lead-up to the presidential election absorbing Republicans’ pledge to mass-deport unauthorized immigrants and processing many Democrats’ rightward shift on the issue. She was also fearing for the fate of her husband and other undocumented loved ones.

For years, Ramirez and her husband, Boris Hernandez, navigated life as one of the millions of mixed-status households in the United States. When the 118th Congress convened after the 2022 midterms, Ramirez, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Latina ever elected to Congress from Illinois — and the only member openly residing with an undocumented immigrant.

Ramirez will join a Republican-controlled Congress for a second term in January. Her experiences as the wife of an undocumented immigrant and daughter of immigrants who entered the United States through its southern border will help shape Democrats’ response to President-elect Donald Trump’s expansive immigration agenda, which includes deploying the military to carry out the nation’s largest deportation effort.