Nation of SettlersImmigration Policy Research

Immigration & Congress

The Imported Left

Nineteen members of the U.S. House, one senator, and two big-city mayors were brought here by the recent mass immigration wave. Almost all now vote far-left.

19
immigrant-origin House members tracked
42%
are immigrants themselves, not just children of immigrants
29%
average foreign-born share of their districts
4
joined in the 2024 class alone

District demography and roll-call voting move together. Sort these members by the foreign-born share of the district they represent and a straight line appears: the more foreign-born the district, the more reliably it sends a member to the left flank of the House. Grace Meng represents the single most foreign-born district in the country. Every member on this list votes to the left of the chamber's center.

Each profile answers three questions. How they or their parents came - the specific program or wave, whether refugee resettlement, a student visa, family sponsorship, or a visa overstay. How they vote, on the record. And where they stand on the enforcement machinery the country built to control its own borders.

The wave behind the delegation

Every member on this page is a product of one policy shift. The foreign-born share of the country fell to a historic low by 1970, then more than tripled after the 1990 Immigration Act.

Foreign-born share of Congress
Pew figurereconstructed
01%2%3%4%1990 Immigration Act019700.6%19801.1%19901.3%20001.6%20101.1%20153.4%20213.6%2025
0
foreign-born members in either chamber, 1967 to 1974
19
foreign-born members in the 119th Congress, about 4%
15%
of the 119th Congress are immigrants or their children
No member of either chamber was foreign-born from 1967 to 1974, the low point after the 1924 Act and four decades of restricted immigration. The share held near 1% through the 1980s and 1990s, then climbed as the post-1990 immigration wave reached office. The 119th Congress, seated in 2025, has 19 foreign-born members, about 4%, the most in more than a century. Counting immigrants and their children together, Pew puts the figure at 15%. The points for 1980 through 2010 are reconstructed from Pew's roster of foreign-born members and the Biographical Directory of Congress; 1970, 2015, 2021, and 2025 are published Pew figures. Sources: Pew Research Center; Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House.

In Congress

Click any card for the full detail: how they or their parents arrived, their religion, and how conservative scorekeepers rate them. Each is tagged by how the member votes, from moderate to the far left.

In the Senate

The mayors

The pattern does not stop at Congress. The same immigration wave now runs two of the country's largest city halls.

In the statehouses

The pattern runs below Congress. Immigrant-origin legislators, many the first Muslim or first of their nationality in their chamber, are winning state senate and state house seats, often by beating establishment Democrats from the left.

On the bench

The pattern reaches the judiciary. Immigrant-origin judges, several the first Muslim to hold their seat, now sit on state and federal courts, all appointed by Democratic presidents or governors. They are lifetime or long-tenure appointees, not elected, so there is no vote score; each card states the appointment path and the documented record.

Where they represent

Every member on this page, mapped: the House, the Senate, two mayors, and the state legislators. Each dot is colored by office and sized by the foreign-born share of the place it represents. Use the filters to isolate a group. Hover for detail; click a dot with a profile to read it.

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More foreign-born, further left

The core pattern, plotted. Foreign-born share of the district against the member's DW-NOMINATE liberalism score.

0.0-0.2-0.4-0.610%20%30%40%50%District foreign-born share →← more liberal (DW-NOMINATE)
Each dot is a House member. Hover for the score. The dashed line is the least-squares fit: the more foreign-born the district, the more liberal its representative votes.

The roster

Click any column header to sort. FB % is the district's foreign-born share; DW-NOM is the DW-NOMINATE first-dimension score (more negative = more liberal). An asterisk marks a preliminary freshman score.

MemberDistrictOriginHow they cameFB % ↓DW-NOMElected
Grace MengNY-6Flushing, QueensTaiwanUS-born (2nd gen)48%-0.3712012
Jimmy GomezCA-34East / NE Los AngelesMexicoUS-born (2nd gen)42%-0.5292017
Luz RivasCA-29NE San Fernando Valley (Pacoima)MexicoUS-born (2nd gen)42%-0.501*2024
Ro KhannaCA-17Silicon ValleyIndiaUS-born (2nd gen)39%-0.4582016
Derek TranCA-45Little Saigon, Orange CountyVietnamRefugee39%-0.255*2024
Adriano EspaillatNY-13Upper Manhattan / BronxDominican RepublicVisa overstay34%-0.5272016
Chuy GarcíaIL-4Chicago (Little Village / Pilsen)MexicoFamily / chain33%-0.4382018
Robert GarciaCA-42Long BeachPeruVisa overstay32%-0.3722022
Suhas SubramanyamVA-10Northern Virginia (Tysons / Loudoun)IndiaUS-born (2nd gen)30%-0.238*2024
Ted LieuCA-36West Los AngelesTaiwanFamily / chain29%-0.3692014
Raja KrishnamoorthiIL-8NW suburban Chicago (Schaumburg)IndiaFamily / chain28%-0.3502016
Delia RamirezIL-3Northwest Chicago (Humboldt Park)GuatemalaUS-born (2nd gen)28%-0.4962022
Yassamin AnsariAZ-3Central / South PhoenixIranUS-born (2nd gen)26%-0.433*2024
Pramila JayapalWA-7SeattleIndiaStudent visa25%-0.6092016
Ami BeraCA-6Sacramento CountyIndiaUS-born (2nd gen)21%-0.2462012
Greg CasarTX-35Austin to San Antonio (I-35)MexicoUS-born (2nd gen)17%-0.4262022
Ilhan OmarMN-5MinneapolisSomaliaRefugee16%-0.2962018
Rashida TlaibMI-12Detroit / DearbornPalestinian (West Bank)US-born (2nd gen)15%-0.2902018
Shri ThanedarMI-13DetroitIndiaStudent visa12%-0.3522022

How far left, member by member

DW-NOMINATE first-dimension scores. Zero is the House center line; every bar runs left of it.

0.0-0.2-0.4-0.6Pramila Jayapal-0.61Jimmy Gomez-0.53Adriano Espaillat-0.53Luz Rivas-0.50Delia Ramirez-0.50Ro Khanna-0.46Chuy García-0.44Yassamin Ansari-0.43Greg Casar-0.43Robert Garcia-0.37Grace Meng-0.37Ted Lieu-0.37Shri Thanedar-0.35Raja Krishnamoorthi-0.35Ilhan Omar-0.30Rashida Tlaib-0.29Derek Tran-0.26Ami Bera-0.25Suhas Subramanyam-0.24
Every member scores negative - to the left of the House center line. Faded bars are preliminary freshman scores.

Do they overindex on the far left?

Every imported member is a Democrat, so the fair test is not against Congress as a whole but against the rest of the Democratic caucus. Measured that way the answer is a qualified yes: imported members are somewhat more concentrated in the very-far-left tier and somewhat scarcer among moderates, but on average they track close to the rest of the caucus, not far beyond it.

Ideology of the imported delegation vs. the Democratic caucus
Imported membersRest of Democratic caucus
0%10%20%30%40%50%20%14%Very far left≤ -0.5030%34%Far left-0.50 to -0.4040%37%Progressive-0.40 to -0.2510%15%Moderate> -0.25
The skew is real but modest. Imported members are somewhat more concentrated in the very-far-left tier than the rest of the Democratic caucus (20% versus 14%) and somewhat less likely to be moderates (10% versus 15%). On average the two groups are close: a DW-NOMINATE of about -0.40 for imported members versus -0.38 for the rest. DW-NOMINATE first dimension, voteview, 119th Congress; the comparison group is the 241 non-imported House and Senate Democrats with a score.

How they got here

The immigration pathway that brought each member or their family to the United States.

Refugee
2
Student visa
2
Family / chain
3
Visa overstay
2
US-born (2nd gen)
10

The 2024 class

The pattern is not receding. Four immigrant-origin members joined the House in the 119th Congress. Two are Progressive Caucus; two are New Democrat moderates whose immigration work is expanding the skilled-visa pipeline.

Luz Rivas

CA-29
Mexico · Progressive Caucus

She joined the Progressive Caucus as a freshman, condemned the challenge to birthright citizenship, and confronted ICE over the Los Angeles raids.

Derek Tran

CA-45
Vietnam · New Democrat

He is an Army veteran and a documented moderate who flipped a Republican-held Orange County seat in 2024.

Suhas Subramanyam

VA-10
India · New Democrat

He is the first Indian-American in Congress from the East Coast, and he moved early to make H-1B visas easier to renew.

Yassamin Ansari

AZ-3
Iran · Progressive Caucus

She is the first Iranian-American Democrat in the House and sits with its progressive wing.

What the roster shows

This is a map of an immigration policy, redrawn as a congressional delegation. The 1965 Hart-Celler Act and the 1990 Immigration Act admitted tens of millions of people and concentrated them in a small number of metropolitan districts. Those districts elect the members on this list. As the foreign-born share of a district rises, the voting record of its representative moves left, toward looser enforcement and higher admissions.

The moderates on this list matter as much as the progressives. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ami Bera, Derek Tran, and Suhas Subramanyam are not radicals. Their shared project is expanding the high-skilled visa and employment green-card pipeline the Nation of Settlers argues should be narrowed. The freshman class of 2024 shows the trend continuing, not reversing. The policy choice came first. The delegation followed.

Sources

  1. DW-NOMINATE first-dimension scores, 119th Congress (voteview.com) - more negative = more liberal
  2. Heritage Action for America Legislative Scorecard, most recent completed session (118th Congress final; 119th for members first elected in 2024). Higher = more conservative.
  3. American Conservative Union / CPAC lifetime ratings (conservative.org)
  4. NumbersUSA career immigration grade (A+ to F-), which rates members specifically on immigration votes
  5. Religious affiliation: Pew Research Center, "Faith on the Hill," 119th Congress
  6. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (district and state foreign-born share)
  7. NorthJersey.com, "Muslim judge Nadia Kahf from Passaic will be first to wear hijab on the bench" (March 2023) - Murphy appointment, Family Division, CAIR-NJ board service
  8. Federal Judicial Center biographical directory, Zahid N. Quraishi (District of New Jersey) - service record and appointment history
  9. NPR, "Zahid Quraishi Is Confirmed As First Muslim American Federal Judge" (June 2021) - 81-16 confirmation vote
  10. Federal Judicial Center biographical directory, Nusrat J. Choudhury (Eastern District of New York) - service record and appointment history
  11. NBC News, "First Muslim woman confirmed as a federal judge" (June 2023) - 50-49 confirmation vote and hearing questioning