The Congressional Hispanic Caucus voted to reject Rep. Carlos Curbelo’s (R-FL) membership request on Thursday, following weeks of public fallout between the Republican Latino congressman and the all-Democratic group.
The CHC denied his request to join, saying the Caucus wasn’t just a group for Hispanics, but one that reflects “certain values.” Many Democratic members had reservations over his initial request, seriously wondering whether it was a political maneuver to raise his reelection chances.
“The CHC isn’t just an organization for Hispanics; it is a Caucus that represents certain values,” CHC spokesperson Carlos Paz, Jr. said in a statement. “This vote reflects the position of many of our members that Rep. Curbelo and his record are not consistent with those values.”
Curbelo heavily criticized the decision as “truly shameful” that the CHC wouldn’t allow him to join, saying that it sends a message of “discrimination, bigotry, and division.”
“Unbelievably, petty partisan interests have led the CHC to formally endorse the segregation of American Hispanics,” Curbelo continued in a statement posted to Twitter, before saying he would work with colleagues to find a permanent fix for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
My statement on the @HispanicCaucus's decision to discriminate against a fellow Hispanic 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/pn6l6Ysdjl
— Rep. Carlos Curbelo (@RepCurbelo) November 16, 2017
The CHC has not been pleased by some of Curbelo’s actions in the past few weeks leading up to its vote, such as an incident during a private meeting when the congressman reportedly accused CHC Chairwoman Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) of discriminating against him because he is a Republican. During that conversation, he also spoke about Grisham’s inability to speak Spanish, the publications BuzzFeed and Politico reported.
A congressional aide who requested anonymity told ThinkProgress that Grisham was a “champion” for Curbelo’s membership bid leading up to the conversation, but that their relationship soured. Now “we’ve come to a place where … he’s burned his bridges,” the aide said.
Another issue is that Curbelo won’t endorse the Caucus’ DREAM Act bill, a broad piece of immigration legislation which would provide an eventual pathway to citizenship for qualified undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. The bill would help roughly 2.1 million immigrants. Instead, Curbelo has been pushing the Recognizing America’s Children (RAC) Act, his own legislation to protect recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-era executive action that granted temporary work authorization and deportation relief. The Trump administration sunset the DACA program in September. About 1.7 million immigrants would qualify for the RAC Act. Curbelo has otherwise said he would support the DREAM Act bill if it made it to the House floor.
“We said we would unite behind one piece of legislation,” the aide explained, questioning Curbelo’s conversations with Republican lawmakers over the RAC Act. “Our job is to protect the Hispanic community. This is a guy who’s holding hostage the DREAM Act … Wouldn’t you want to sign on to bill that helps the most people?”
The CHC used to be bipartisan until some Florida Republicans dropped out over differences on Cuba policy, the Miami Herald pointed out. They formed their own group, the Congressional Hispanic Conference, which is now chaired by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL).
Curbelo is facing a difficult 2018 reelection in a district that’s 70 percent Latinx. He currently has an approval rating of 37 percent, according to a Public Policy Polling survey of registered voters taken last week.
Meanwhile, with each day that Congress has delayed in passing legislation to help immigrants, another 122 DACA recipients will fall out of status and could be subject to deportation.