I left Puerto Rico 39 years ago to make the United States’ mainland my home.
I love this country, which has allowed me to live out the American dream, earn a Ph.D., launch a successful career as an image science engineer and raise my family. But in all my years living in America, I never imagined we would face daily attacks on our democracy and everything I hold dear coming from inside the Oval Office.
More than Presidents Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton combined, Donald Trump has amassed a long list of impeachable offenses that the American public — and, more importantly, the members of Congress we sent to D.C. to serve our will — cannot ignore.
From obstruction of justice, abuse of power, profiting from the presidency, colluding with Russian agents, advancing political violence, attacking the free press, to violating immigrants’ rights without due process, the investigations surrounding Trump and his associates have already produced 37 indictments and 199 charges.
Last month, Trump declared a national state of emergency in order to wrongfully take funding from the budget to fulfill his racist campaign promise — building his border wall. This so-called emergency is nothing more than a manufactured ruse he created because the new Congress — which was overwhelmingly elected to restore oversight — would not play along with his political agenda.
National emergencies are for actual emergencies — like Hurricane Maria and the toll it’s taken on my homeland — not when a lawless president doesn’t get his way. The real security threat to the country isn’t the border, but the man who sits in the White House where he spews rhetoric and endangers the American people on a daily basis.
Now it’s time for us to remind those with power in Congress that we demand action, including our own representative, Congressman Ted Deutch. Rep. Deutch, with two other Democratic U.S. House members from Florida — Rep. Val Demings and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell — have the power to hold Trump accountable.
They, together with 20 other Democratic members of Congress, make up the influential House Judiciary Committee that has the authority to launch an investigation into the crimes that Trump has committed while in office. If they exercise their power they can introduce articles of impeachment and send them to the full U.S. House of Representatives for a vote — the first step in removing Trump from office.
The Judiciary Committee must act immediately. With each day that passes, Trump erodes our democracy and puts the safety and wellbeing of everyone in our country in jeopardy. Only our members of Congress can put an end to this national crisis. We put them in office and now it’s time that they listen to the will of the American public and hold Trump and his administration accountable.
Earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that impeaching Trump was “just not worth it,” out of fear of divineness. She’s wrong. Congress most important role is to protect our Democracy. America remains strong but every so often it is tested. Trump is our latest test. Fortunately, our Constitution has a system of check and balances that give us the tools necessary to deal with a presidential threat and that is the impeachment process.
It’s time to hold the people we elected accountable to protect us from this danger. We have a window of opportunity to act before Trump does irreparable damage to our country. I implore Rep. Deutch and the other members of the House Judiciary Committee to act and start impeachment proceeding immediately.
In January, I joined nearly 300 impeachment supporters from across the country in Washington, D.C. to take our message to Capitol Hill. We hand delivered Articles of Impeachment to every single member of Congress and asked them to protect us and our country from our Commander in Chief.
Years from now, history will judge us on our actions and what we did to save our country from Trump. I want to be able to say to that I stood up and did something to protect our future.
Will you join me? And, if so, will you call on your elected leaders and demand them to stand up for you, too?
