Incoming ‘Squad’ Member Makes Stunning Foreign-Country Vow

Claire Valdez, a DSA-backed New York Democrat headed to Congress, marked Mexican Independence Day by calling Mexican nationals her “comrades” and promising to carry that fight to Washington.

Valdez is a first-term state assembly member and the Democratic nominee in New York’s 7th District after winning the June 23 primary with 56.2 percent. She was one of three Zohran Mamdani-backed DSA candidates who beat Democratic incumbents.

The seat covers parts of northern Brooklyn and western Queens. The district is deep blue, so November is treated as a formality.

Valdez holds dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship. In her post she wrote, “215 years ago, Mexicans fought an empire that demanded our land and our labor. And we won.”

“I’ll carry that fight with me to Congress as New York’s first Mexican American representative,” she added. “And I’m strengthened not just by Mexico’s history but its present.”

She said she had met “comrades in Morena” the prior month who were “standing up to the empires and corporations that have always taken from us – and building a government for the working class.” She closed with “¡Viva la Independencia, Viva México!”

Her campaign platform includes Medicare for All “on Day One,” funded, she says, by taxes on billionaires and corporations.

On immigration she has pledged to “work to abolish ICE,” create citizenship paths for people here illegally, end local cooperation with federal immigration agencies, and shrink border enforcement.

Fellow Mamdani-backed DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier won the primary in New York’s 13th District, adding another socialist-aligned freshman to the incoming class.