33 Facts About Adriano Espaillat

Adriano de Jesus Espaillat Rodriguez is a Dominican-American politician.

Adriano Espaillat is the US representative for and the first Dominican American and first formerly illegal immigrant to serve in Congress.

Adriano Espaillat previously served in the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly.

Adriano Espaillat represented the neighborhoods of Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, Manhattanville, Morningside Heights, East Harlem and the Upper West Side in Manhattan.

Adriano Espaillat challenged then-Representative Charles Rangel in the Democratic primaries in 2012 and 2014, eventually winning the Democratic nomination in 2016 after Rangel announced his retirement.

Adriano Espaillat represents one of the most Democratic districts in the country, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+38.

Adriano Espaillat was born on September 27,1954, in Santiago, Dominican Republic, to Melba and Ulises Adriano Espaillat.

Adriano Espaillat is a great-grandson of Dominican President Ulises Espaillat.

Adriano Espaillat has African ancestry and is of mixed Afro-Latino lineage.

Adriano Espaillat is a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Adriano Espaillat is a Catholic, but disagrees with the Church on certain issues.

Adriano Espaillat served as the Manhattan Court Services Coordinator for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, a nonprofit organization that provides indigent legal services and works to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention and post-sentence incarceration costs.

Adriano Espaillat later worked as Director of the Washington Heights Victims Services Community Office, an organization offering counseling and other services to families of victims of homicides and other crimes.

From 1994 to 1996, Adriano Espaillat served as the Director of Project Right Start, a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to combat substance abuse by educating the parents of preschool children.

Adriano Espaillat served on Governor Mario Cuomo's Dominican-American Advisory Board from 1991 to 1993.

Adriano Espaillat served in the New York State Assembly from 1997 to 2010.

Adriano Espaillat was elected in 1996, defeating 16-year incumbent John Brian Murtaugh in the Democratic primary.

Adriano Espaillat passed laws encouraging the construction and preservation of affordable housing, giving low-income day care workers the right to organize and obtain health care, and sponsored measures to improve hospital translation services.

Adriano Espaillat established a higher education scholarship fund for relatives of the victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed on November 12,2001.

Adriano Espaillat took legal action against power utility Con Edison after equipment failures led to a two-day blackout in Upper Manhattan in July 1999 that caused financial damage to restaurants, bodegas and other small businesses.

Adriano Espaillat ran for State Senate in 2010 after incumbent Eric Schneiderman announced his campaign for New York Attorney General.

In 2011, Adriano Espaillat led the fight to safeguard and strengthen rent regulation for over 1 million affordable housing apartments that was set to expire that year.

Adriano Espaillat passed legislation increasing enforcement against businesses that sell alcohol to minors and authored the Notary Public Advertising Act, to crack down on public notaries who prey on vulnerable immigrants by offering fraudulent legal services.

Adriano Espaillat voted in favor of marriage equality legislation in 2011.

In 2012, Adriano Espaillat ran in the Democratic primary for New York's 13th congressional district, in a crowded field that included 42-year incumbent Charles Rangel.

Adriano Espaillat placed first in the Bronx section of the district and parts of Upper Manhattan.

In November 2015, Adriano Espaillat announced he would give up his State Senate seat to run for Congress again.

Adriano Espaillat was running for an open seat; Rangel had announced in 2014 that he would not seek a 22nd term in 2016.

Adriano Espaillat serves as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and the Committee on Small Business.

Adriano Espaillat is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was appointed chair of the CHC Task Force for Transportation, Infrastructure and Housing.

Adriano Espaillat visited an immigration detention facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, vowing that the US needs to do a better job of connecting migrant children detained at the southern border with their families.

The first former illegal immigrant in Congress, Adriano Espaillat claimed he overstayed a tourist visa in the 1960s and is a staunch supporter of the American Dream and Promise Act.

In 2019, Adriano Espaillat supported the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, an effort that called for criminal penalties of up to $1 million for companies that support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement against Israel.