The Reality
Immigration is one of the most emotionally charged issues in American politics — and one of the most distorted. Politicians on both sides use it to score points and raise money while real people’s lives hang in the balance. Maria believes the Massive Middle of this country wants something neither extreme is offering: an immigration system that is both secure and humane, both lawful and compassionate.
The current situation is a failure on every front. Our immigration laws are outdated. Our courts are overwhelmed. Our enforcement agencies are operating outside constitutional boundaries. And hardworking people who have built lives, raised families, and contributed to our communities for decades live in constant fear.
We can do better. We must do better.
The Crisis at Our Door Right Now
Before we talk about long-term reform, Maria wants to be direct about what is happening today — because it cannot wait.
ICE is violating the Constitution. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining people — including American citizens — based on their appearance, without due process, and in pursuit of daily arrest quotas. People are disappearing into a vast network of detention centers with no access to lawyers, no hearing, and no accountability. This is happening in America. Right now.
This is not border security. This is not law enforcement. This is unconstitutional — and Maria will fight it from her first day in Congress.
ICE must be reined in, retrained, and restructured. Enforcement must be targeted, lawful, and humane. Profit-driven detention warehousing of human beings is not acceptable in the United States of America.
What Maria Will Fight For
1. Restore Due Process
Every person on American soil — citizen or not — has constitutional rights. Maria will fight to end warrantless detentions, ensure access to legal counsel, and hold ICE accountable for civil rights violations. No more disappearing people into detention without due process of law.
2. A Clear Path to Citizenship
Maria supports a fair, structured pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our communities — especially those who have been here for years and have American-born children. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends. They are not criminals. They are Americans in every way that matters except on paper.
3. Protect DACA Recipients
People who were brought to this country as children — who grew up here, went to school here, built careers here — should not be punished for decisions made before they could walk. Maria fully supports a permanent legislative solution for DACA recipients, providing them a clear and certain path to citizenship.
4. Reform the Immigration Courts
The immigration court system is in crisis. Cases are backlogged for years. Judges are overwhelmed. Families are left in legal limbo for a decade or more. Maria will fight for significant new investment in immigration courts — more judges, more staff, more resources — so that cases are decided fairly and promptly.
5. Create Legal Pathways for Workers
Across Ohio’s 14th District and across the country, industries from agriculture to healthcare to construction depend on immigrant labor. Rather than criminalizing this reality, Maria supports expanding and modernizing legal visa pathways for essential workers — including seasonal agricultural workers, skilled tradespeople, and healthcare professionals — so that businesses can meet their workforce needs lawfully and workers have legal protections.
6. Improve the Refugee and Asylum System
People who are fleeing violence or real danger deserve a system that works — one that’s fair and doesn’t leave them waiting in limbo for years. Maria supports fixing the backlog, updating the technology, ensuring sufficient staffing to handle cases, and setting clear, consistent standards. And she believes people should be treated with basic dignity while their cases are being decided.
7. End the Political Football
Immigration has been used as a wedge issue by both parties for decades — kept deliberately broken because it works better as a campaign issue than as a solved problem. Maria refuses to play that game. She will work across the aisle with anyone who is serious about comprehensive, lasting reform — because the people of Ohio’s 14th deserve a representative who is here to govern, not just to campaign.
Immigration and the Economy
Maria also wants to connect the dots that too many politicians ignore: immigration policy is economic policy.
Right now, the administration’s mass deportation campaign is causing labor shortages in food production — driving up grocery prices for every family in every county in our district. Rounding up hardworking people doesn’t make America safer. It makes your groceries more expensive and leaves crops to rot in the fields.
Immigrants are not taking from our economy. Study after study shows they are net contributors — starting businesses, filling critical jobs, paying taxes, and revitalizing communities that would otherwise be shrinking. Whole towns across America have been brought back to life by immigrant families who chose to put down roots there.
Smart immigration policy isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s good economics.
A Note from Maria
“I believe in borders. I believe in the rule of law. And I believe in the Constitution — all of it, for everyone. What I’m seeing from this administration is none of those things. It’s chaos dressed up as strength. Real strength is building a system that is orderly, fair, and reflects who we actually are as a nation. We are a country of immigrants. That’s not a bumper sticker — it’s our entire history. I’m going to fight to make our immigration system worthy of that history.”