I come from a state in India that is a matrilineal state, Kerala. And so women really are seen as very powerful.
— Pramila Jayapal
Certainly there are many Congress members who have been arrested in the past on immigration issues and will continue to because we all understand that staying silent is not an option.
We need to incentivize states across our country to spend on higher education and ensure that we go back to allowing people to go to college tuition-free.
OneAmerica worked over the course of a decade to bring the movement of immigrants and communities of color together with the movement for marriage equality in Washington.
We don't get a more responsive government unless we start to systematically run organizing campaigns to change the way government works.
For immigrant women, fighting for some of the standard platforms of the women's movement may feel unthinkable when deportation is staring you in the face every day.
It took me 17 years to become a U.S. citizen.
I came to the United States by myself when I was 16 years old. My parents had about $5,000 in their bank account, and they used it all to send me here because they truly believed that this country was where I was going to get the best education and have the best opportunities.
As difficult as my story is, it's nothing compared to the people I've worked with. And so I just want to do everything I can to make sure that America continues to be a land of opportunity and hope for people and refuge for people from all over the world.
I have my chops in organizing, and I know how to create political space through movement building.
We are a country that has always been known for providing opportunities to people. We have lost a lot of that opportunity.
We must be clear: Donald Trump is lying when he conflates immigrants coming across the border with MS-13 gangs.
If someone tells me that something can't be done, that makes me more determined to do it.
I want to remind women of color out there to stand your ground, and don't ever be afraid to speak up.
Can you be a progressive if you're anti-immigrant but pro-choice? No!
The fact that the immigration issue was the first thing Trump took aim at was a good thing for me, because it's what I spent my life working on. It became a place to see what we've become as a country, and how overreach can actually serve to bring those of us on the Left and Democrats together.
Immigrants contribute more than they take. It is a lie that they take public benefits, because they don't qualify for just about every benefit.
When I was a little girl, my dad always said to me that I was going to be this great businesswoman, that I was going to be the CEO of IBM. So that's what I came into the world thinking, that I was going to go into the business world and make my mark there.
There's nothing normal about graduating with massive student debt, where you live in fear of predatory debt collectors and wage garnishers even as you are starting to live your life.
Getting a college degree used to be free or low cost because, as a society, we saw providing higher education to young people as an investment - in them and in the future of our own country.
I'm conscious of my race and ethnicity in the legislature - it's hard not to be.
Before running for the Washington State Senate in 2014, I had spent 20 years as an activist. I had always believed that we needed to push for change on the outside, through community organizing and advocacy.
For immigrant women, the very act of immigration is about opportunity, equality, and freedom. Women immigrants come to America to care for their families, escape gender-based violence, or express their sexual identity.
The vast majority of immigrants - regardless of the conditions of war and poverty that may wrack their home countries - come and contribute to their new home country: building our roads, caring for our homes, children, and elders, and serving as doctors, lawyers, employers, and innovators.
This is the country that we are turning over to young people, and there is going to be no country left at this rate because Trump is destroying the soul of who we are.
Fundamentally, I've always been a fan of actually looking at our whole state tax system and really figuring out how we reform our tax system so that everyone's paying their fair share but we don't have a lot of nickel and diming with 100 taxes that end up hitting people that maybe can't bear it the most.
We have to have a planet to pass on to the next generation, and these issues of climate change and climate justice and the disproportionate burdens that communities of color actually bear from our damaging climate is a huge issue.
Every hour that goes by with family separation policies in effect is another hour that mothers weep thinking of their children, another hour that kids are fearfully wondering where their parents have been taken, another hour that trauma deepens.
Ripping children away from their parents has a particular shameful history, both in this country and around the world.
My big idea is that democracy can only work properly if you have truly representative people at the table.
As we say we fight for working people, we have to make sure our policies reflect that.
We on the Left are very good at criticizing people, but we need to build the base to pull people to the Left.
I am on the side of the working person across the country.
There is no question that we, as a country, need to deal with economic inequality across the country, and we need to make sure we have good-paying jobs for everyone.
Corporations and special interests have their voice in Congress, and they have too many members scared of their power. What Congress needs is a progressive voice who is unafraid to take on these powerful interests - who is willing to fight for all Americans, not just the wealthiest 1 percent.
Profiting from student loans is usury, and we just can't continue to allow it.
Gays and lesbians gained rights in this country though activism and organizing, creating political space and demanding change so that lawmakers and justices could do what they knew was right. That organizing allowed Americans to get to know gays and lesbians as our daughters and sons, our neighbors, and our friends.
I love my district, the 37th Legislative District in Washington State, where I have lived for more than 20 years.
We need to expand the idea of choice to be about all the choices we make in our lives: including which country we choose to live in so we can be whole and full women.
If there is one thing that resonates for women, it is that regardless of where we come from or what we look like, we want to be fully recognized for the breadth of our contributions.
What Republicans so cynically refer to as 'chain migration' is actually family-based immigration - a humane and compassionate policy of reunifying families. It allows spouses to be together, siblings to support each other, and children to be with their parents. It allows the immigrants who are already here to be successful.
I feel like young people, more than anyone in the country, always have their moral compass on perfectly straight.
Trump has hated Amazon for a long time, and I think that that came out in many interviews that he's done with 'Vanity Fair' and with others.
I was on the committee that helped raise the minimum wage here in Seattle. I introduced a statewide bill to raise the minimum wage in Washington state my first year in the state senate, and I really believe that raising the federal minimum wage, while not the answer to everything, addresses a lot of the issues at the very bottom.
Individuals whose asylum claims have been accepted have gone on to become professors, soldiers in our military, artists, and more.
There isn't really precedent for asylum seekers' being criminally prosecuted at the border before they've had a 'credible fear' hearing. You come seeking asylum. Seeking asylum is not illegal.
After 9/11, I had just become an American citizen, and I remember sitting in front of my TV set watching the news of the attacks, in tears. I remember thinking to myself, 'Nothing is ever going to be the same in this country for people who look like me.'
If you look at the future of the Democratic Party, things like raising the minimum wage - Democrats need to get behind raising the minimum wage and be clear on where we stand on trade deals.
Districts are really different across the country, but the more that people on the progressive Left show power at the ballot box - and reclassify some of the ideas that we've called 'progressive,' but that are really mainstream ideas, like college for all - the better.
It is always easier to have somebody to blame, but immigrants are not the cause of the country's economic woes.
