Mexican immigrant elected to Congress, Juan Ciscomani, won’t settle for identity politics
Anna Giaritelli
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COCHISE COUNTY, Arizona — Juan Ciscomani was a green card holder and citizen of Mexico the first time he went to Washington to intern on Capitol Hill.
In January, exactly 20 years after that inaugural trip, he returned to the nation’s capital, only this time as a U.S. citizen and donning a green member of Congress pin.
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Ciscomani, a legal immigrant and father of six, won Arizona’s 6th Congressional District just southeast of Tucson in a swing-seat battle that helped Republicans win back the House. Before being elected in 2022, he was a senior adviser to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and vice chairman of the Arizona-Mexico Commission.
At a time when the border crisis has divided Democrats and Republicans to extremes, Ciscomani said Hispanics should not be pushed to think a certain way about an issue just because of their heritage.
“Some people play the race card quite a bit in saying that if you’re Hispanic, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to behave a certain way, or you’ve got to act or go to a certain party, got to be registered under a certain political denomination. I don’t buy into that,” Ciscomani said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
To the 40-year-old, there “are no Hispanic or non-Hispanic issues — there are issues that we all get impacted by.” He has not made the border into an invasion, as certain politicians on the Right have done, but he also recognizes that the millions of noncitizens violating federal law by entering the country without authorization cannot be overlooked and has had major consequences.
The border, he says, boils down to three components: immigration, trade, and security. Most politicians take a position on immigration or security, but all need to be considered because of how they affect one another.
“What I bring to the table is a balanced perspective between all three because, like I said, one, I have a personal experience with the other one, I have a career that I focused on, and border security is what my community has been going through and living on the border gives me that perspective,” Ciscomani said. “I’m sitting in a place where I can talk about it from a very personal basis.”
That position captured the attention of GOP leadership very quickly into his time in Congress. Ciscomani was chosen to give the Spanish rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in February.
He spoke about practical issues people face and stayed away from finger-pointing. His message was in stark contrast to the main Republican Party rebuttal from former White House press secretary and current Gov. Sarah Sanders (R-AR). Sanders leaned into the culture wars and chided the Democratic Party as being “hijacked by the radical Left” and out to “indoctrinate” school children and impose “woke” views on people.
Ciscomani recalled recent conversations with Hispanic voters in his district whose top concerns mirrored those of non-Hispanic people: better jobs, better educational opportunities, and safety.
“I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago now with Spanish-speaking business owners, and most of the time when I speak to small business owners, their top concerns are around government interference or taxes and just things that are infringing upon their ability to do business,” Ciscomani said.
“These are all immigrant business owners … from restaurants to tire shops to lending institutions. And their No. 1 top issue and all that they wanted to talk about was crime that is out of control,” Ciscomani said, adding that issues with homeless people and fentanyl were the other top concerns among this group.
The first-term congressman joined Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and David Valadao (R-CA) on Wednesday for a tour of the border and the port of entry. The lawmakers endorsed the idea of a comprehensive solution that addressed legal immigration levels and border security.
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Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels briefed Ciscomani and lawmakers during a roundtable discussion at the sheriff’s office Wednesday. Dannels said the border crisis was directly connected to rising crime in the community. Approximately 40% of the crime was related to the border.
“This is an issue that a lot have tried and a lot have failed to do,” Ciscomani, who added that a solution will require compromises from all involved, said. “I do see a window here of getting something done. And I am very optimistic that we can, quite frankly. Having the size majority that we have and having a divided Congress, it poses challenges, but it also poses its opportunities.”