House Republicans’ campaign arm directly attacked Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s immigration status, drawing condemnation from Democrats.

“Democrats literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump’s address,” the National Republican Congressional Committee wrote on X on Wednesday, adding that “Democrats couldn’t be more disconnected from the American people.”

The direct attack of Espaillat, the first Dominican American member of Congress and a former undocumented immigrant, was met with a swift response from top Democrats who called the post racist.

“These people are disgusting,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on X.

Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said the GOP “isn’t even trying to hide its racism anymore.”

“With Speaker @MikeJohnson leading the charge, they wear their bigotry like a badge of honor — absolutely despicable! @RepEspaillat is a sitting member of Congress, an American citizen, and a dedicated public servant,” Martin said on X.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said “Whoever is the intern @NRCC that tweeted this racist shit needs to be fired” in his own post to X.

Espaillat delivered Democrats’ Spanish-language response to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress earlier this week. He and his family overstayed a tourist visa when he was a child but received green cards within a year.

Espaillat, who has now been a U.S. citizen for decades and chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has proudly labeled himself a “former undocumented immigrant turned progressive Congressman.”

The New York Democrat has also battled with Trump on immigration policies dating back to his first term.

The NRCC doubled down on its language, responding to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul calling the post “Vile, ignorant, and racist.”

“Democrats caring more about policing words and fighting facts instead of policing our border and fighting crime shows just how out of touch they are,” said NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella, echoing the NRCC’s response to Hochul online.

Espaillat’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Some Democrats, too, have used their political opponents’ citizenship status in recent attacks.

On Monday, Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) told Elon Musk, who has led Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, to “go back to South Africa.”

Musk was born in South Africa but has been a U.S. citizen for decades.

“It was interesting yesterday — I was watching a video of an interview of Elon Musk where he said the Italians should stay in Italy and the Chinese should stay in China. My question to Elon Musk is — what the hell are you doing here in America?” Velázquez said at a rally outside HUD, misrepresenting an interview Musk gave where he was encouraging people to have children and reverse declining birth rates.

Musk has railed against illegal immigration in the United States. He has said he supports “a highly selective immigration policy” in the U.S. and has implied immigration could lead to a loss of distinct cultures globally.

Velázquez’s comments led to a slew of condemnation from Republicans, including from the White House’s rapid response team, which called the comments “completely unhinged.”

House Democrats are making it official: Latino voters have shifted their battleground map.

Their campaign arm is unveiling its list of top battleground incumbents to defend in 2026, giving the first insight into how the party views the midterm elections — with notable new additions to reflect a shift toward President Donald Trump in some majority-Latino congressional districts

The 26-member “frontline” list provided first to POLITICO otherwise largely matches the list of districts where Democrats played defense last cycle. As Democrats continue their post-election autopsy, the list reveals where the party thinks it is most vulnerable and will have to dedicate resources to protect incumbents.

Texas Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez weren’t on the list last cycle but saw their South Texas districts, some of the most heavily Latino in the country, shift dramatically toward Trump. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) was also a new addition to the list, meaning all three Democratic House members from Nevada will be “frontliners.” Another once-safe district, the North Jersey seat held by Rep. Nellie Pou, was deep-blue territory for years but Trump won it this past cycle.

Although there are warning signs that could signal a broader shift among Latino voters away from Democrats, the party still seemed confident about its potential to capture the majority next year.

“With the cost of living still top of mind for voters, and House Republicans actively pushing disastrous policies that further increase costs, it’s clear that House Democrats are poised to retake the majority in 2026,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) in a statement.

The DCCC list is a perennial source of heartburn — and sometimes conflict — among lawmakers who jockey to get onto the list because it helps allocate party resources and leads to a boost in fundraising and attention. With a shrinking number of competitive congressional seats, much of the list remains the same between elections, with changes based on factors such as how specific candidates performed and how presidential results emerged on a district-by-district basis.

Trump’s dominance last fall has changed the overall landscape. Thirteen Democrats now represent seats won by Trump in 2024, while only three Republicans represent seats won by former Vice President Kamala Harris. So even as the narrow House margin means Democrats only need to flip a handful of seats to win back the majority, they have to simultaneously defend many seats.

Recently flipped seats in California and New York like those held by Reps. George Whitesides, Derek Tran, Laura Gillen and Josh Riley, were also added to the list.

There were also some subtractions from last cycle’s list. Several midwestern Democrats — Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota, Eric Sorensen and Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, and Hillary Scholten of Michigan — were removed after handily dispatching their opponents.

The full list of lawmakers:

• Josh Harder (Calif.)
• Adam Gray (Calif.)
• George Whitesides (Calif.)
• Derek Tran (Calif.)
• Dave Min (Calif.)
• Jahana Hayes (Conn.)
• Frank Mrvan (Ind.)
• Jared Golden (Maine)
• Kristen McDonald Rivet (Mich.)
• Don Davis (N.C.)
• Nellie Pou (N.J.)
• Gabe Vasquez (N.M.)
• Dina Titus (Nev.)
• Susie Lee (Nev.)
• Steven Horsford (Nev.)
• Tom Suozzi (N.Y.)
• Laura Gillen (N.Y.)
• Josh Riley (N.Y.)
• John Mannion (N.Y.)
• Marcy Kaptur (Ohio)
• Emilia Sykes (Ohio)
• Janelle Bynum (Ore.)
• Henry Cuellar (Texas)
• Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)
• Eugene Vindman (Va.)
• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.)

The four big city mayors who testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill knew they were invited by House Republicans to be punching bags. For New York’s Eric Adams, however, the blows were thrown by fellow Democrats.

GOP lawmakers not only spared Adams from the brunt of their often-theatrical attacks on sanctuary cities, they defended him against the Democratic onslaught — including from fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) at one point called Adams “an outstanding mayor.”

It was the latest display of just how far through the looking-glass things have gone for Adams, who in four years has gone from the “Biden of Brooklyn” and “new face of the Democratic Party” to an unlikely ally of President Donald Trump.

That about-face — with the Trump Justice Department’s decision last month to drop a corruption case against Adams as its pivot point — fueled the Democratic attacks Wednesday at the made-for-TV hearing.

It opened with Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the panel’s top Democrat, referencing Adams’ federal case and alleged indebtedness to Trump. It deepened when other Democrats pressed Adams in increasingly aggressive terms about whether he had traded his cooperation with federal immigration officials for leniency from prosecutors.

“We have a right to know if the Trump administration has actually coerced you into agreeing to him,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California asked him. “Are you selling out New Yorkers to save yourself from prosecution?”

Ocasio-Cortez — who, like Adams, represents New York City — later rained questions on the mayor about whether he agreed to municipal policy changes that would appease Trump. Adams looked straight at her as she described the Trump administration’s decision to drop his prosecution as a “four-alarm fire” for the rule of law in the United States.

“There’s no deal, no quid pro quo, and I did nothing wrong,” Adams said in what has become his standard response to the allegation that he struck an illicit deal with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan to allow federal immigration agents into city jails in exchange for the end of his legal peril.

The dynamic set Adams far apart from the three other Democratic mayors — Denver’s Mike Johnston, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson and Boston’s Michelle Wu — who sat alongside him in a subterranean hearing room and faced feverish questioning from House Republicans seeking a viral moment.

Adams had braced for the possibility he would feature prominently in the GOP’s scrutiny of cities that had rebuffed federal immigration enforcement. Instead, Republicans largely gave the former New York City police captain a pass, often skipping over him with their rapid-fire questions.

Where the other three mayors put up a defiant and sometimes argumentative front, Adams instead followed a formula of giving succinct, unprovocative answers. He was rewarded with plenty of Republican praise.

“Mayor Adams is being attacked because he’s agreed to cooperate with federal officials to uphold the laws of the United States,” said Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.).

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) connected Adams’ prosecution to his criticism of former President Joe Biden: “The only one of you who stood up to the previous administration was under investigation shortly thereafter. Weird how that happens.”

And Comer praised Adams for being “willing to work with [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] on detaining the most criminal illegals — and I want to publicly thank you for that.”

That praise alternated with combative exchanges between Democrats and the New York mayor. In one testy exchange, freshman Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia asked Adams if he had ever discussed his criminal case with Trump.

Adams paused as an attorney whispered into his ear then repeated the line: “This case is in front of Judge Ho, and out of deference to Judge Ho, I’m not going to discuss this case,” he said, referring to U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, who is now considering whether to drop the charges as the Justice Department has requested.

Subramanyam eventually dropped the line of inquiry, concluding that “Mayor Adams is not answering the question because he probably has” discussed his case with the White House.

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) — whose Long Island district was previously represented by Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican and former New York police officer — targeted the New York mayor with the same zeal as her more progressive colleagues, calling on him at one point to resign.

Her attacks provoked Adams to retort, “Thank God you don’t live in New York City.”

The bear hug from congressional Republicans, meanwhile, does Adams no favors when it comes to his political future. He faces a narrowing path to reelection this year with the criminal case and Trump’s mass deportation agenda looming over the country’s largest sanctuary city.

Democrats were not in the mood to do him any favors. Garcia came with posters of former U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon’s resignation letter condemning the decision to drop charges against him and of Homan praising Adams in a joint Fox News interview.

Weighing in from afar was Homan himself, who wrote on X that “Mayor Adams is trying to protect New Yorkers from violent illegal aliens” as he watched the hearing.

Adams appeared disengaged at times. When Connolly laid into him at the top of the hearing, he looked off to the side, then looking forward again and sipping his tea after the Virginia Democrat moved on. As other Democrats pressed him for answers, he flipped through a briefing book as he mounted his defense.

In his own opening statement, Adams leaned heavily on his experience as a law enforcement official and sought to push back on the notion that his approach to immigration and crime has changed since Trump won a second term.

“You know me, I’m the same mayor,” he told reporters before the hearing. “Three things stay on my mind all the time: public safety, public safety, public safety. We have to have a safe city.”

Democratic mayors, summoned to Washington to answer for their handling of the immigration crisis, struggled on Wednesday to combat Republican allegations their cities are rife with violent crime and in need of rescuing by the GOP administration.

It was the culmination of months of relentless attacks by President Donald Trump and his allies, and it sets up further moves by the administration — including Vice President JD Vance’s trip to the southern border Wednesday afternoon — to keep Democrats in a defensive crouch on the issue.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee grilled the chief executives of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City on the heels of Trump’s victory lap in his joint address to Congress Tuesday evening. There, he proclaimed that his administration had begun “the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.”

Mirroring the administration’s language, Republicans in Congress pulled out isolated incidents of violence by undocumented immigrants to make their case that cities with sanctuary status should open their jails to federal authorities — despite the mayors saying there’s no law requiring local authorities to coordinate with U.S. immigration officials.

“Sanctuary cities make us all less safe and are a public safety nightmare,” said House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.). “We cannot let pro-criminal alien policies [and] obstructionist sanctuary cities continue to endanger American communities and the safety of federal immigration enforcement officers.”

Democrats countered with nuanced, at times convoluted, legal arguments about where the authority, and responsibility, to deal with the immigration issue lies.

“The welcoming city ordinance is pretty straightforward — it allows for our local law enforcement to focus on local policies,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, of his own city’s sanctuary city policies that protect undocumented residents.

Ultimately, the events of this week show how Democrats are writhing under the heavy boot of the GOP on immigration, a major electoral issue on which the left has had trouble gaining traction — even as the Trump administration has pursued unpopular efforts like ending birthright citizenship and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make arrests in schools and churches.

During Wednesday’s roughly six-hour hearing, Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat, acknowledged that lawmakers were having a hard time coming up with comprehensive immigration policy given Congress’ responsibilities to regulate immigration and the cities’ own authorities.

“We’re struggling with this right now — there’s a tension between that authority of Congress to act under Article I of the Constitution, and then your responsibility, nobly taken, to provide a safe environment for the residents and visitors to your cities,” Lynch said to the mayors. “How do we reconcile? And I’m asking you for advice.”

The mayors had few, if any, answers. Instead, they punted it back to the Republican lawmakers, including by imploring Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

“Respectfully, congressman, you could pass bipartisan legislation and that would be comprehensive immigration law,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in response to a line of questioning from Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). “The false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals, or immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm. That is actually what is undermining safety in our communities.”

That plea is almost certain to fall on deaf ears in a Republican governing trifecta, where GOP lawmakers are more focused on reducing illegal immigration than on expanding pathways to citizenship.

The administration has its own immigration agenda, with Trump officials dialing up the pressure on Congress to fill resource gaps in the months ahead. The president said Tuesday night that he sent a detailed funding request to Congress and urged GOP leaders to move quickly as he vows to complete the “largest deportation operation in American history.”

Vance was in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday to survey the state of migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, where he sought to build momentum for the congressional funding ask as the administration’s ability to meet its deportation ambitions has been stymied by lack of resources.

“We didn’t need new laws to secure the border, we needed a new president, and thank God we have that,” said Vance, who was on the ground with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Back on Capitol Hill, Democrats throughout the hearing extolled the virtues of immigration. Mass deportations, Wu said, would be “devastating for our economy.”

At times, both the Democratic mayors and Democrats on the Oversight Committee tried to change the subject entirely. Wu, for instance, called on Congress to pass gun control legislation and to protect Medicaid, as Republicans are mulling cuts to the health care program.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, whose Illinois district is not far from Chicago, bemoaned the cost of eggs under the new Trump administration, saying it would soon be cheaper to buy a magazine for an assault rifle than breakfast.

Republicans, on the other hand, demanded the mayors account for violence that they argued was the result of lax immigration enforcement, drawing from emotionally charged and graphic examples.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio pointed to the arrest of an alleged Venezuelan gang member charged with a number of crimes around the Denver area. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina accused the mayors of having “blood” on their hands. And Rep. Clay Higgins spoke beside a photo of a young baby held by her parents, one of whom was killed by an undocumented immigrant in Texas.

“He’ll never be here to raise his daughter,” Higgins said, emphatically. “You mayors, you have responsibility not just to your communities and the citizens … but by extension to the entire Republic.”

Jordan pressed Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to answer specifically on the Denver case, which Jordan said culminated in the assault of an ICE official. Johnston said he had reviewed video of the incident and offered to sit down with ICE officials if there were procedures his city could change.

One mayor received a more friendly welcome by Republicans than the others: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has found himself allied with the Trump administration on its immigration agenda after the Department of Justice moved to drop the corruption case against him.

Comer thanked Adams for his cooperation with the administration on working with ICE, while Democrats accused him of entering into a quid pro quo with the administration in return for the dismissal of his criminal case — an allegation Adams vehemently denied.

But the much anticipated hearing, which was hyped with a movie-style trailer from the House Oversight Committee, failed to deliver the same kind of reverberations as the hearing with elite university presidents in late 2023 over allegations of antisemitic activity on their campuses.

House Republicans weren’t able to trip up mayors in the same way Rep. Elise Stefanik did when she questioned the college presidents about whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct.

Still, like many other Oversight Committee hearings in this Congress and the previous legislative session, tensions still at times boiled over into testy exchanges. Comer at one point threatened to remove Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley from the hearing, as she tried to read an article to enter materials into the Congressional record.

“This trend of you all trying to get thrown out of committees so you can get on MSNBC is gonna end,” Comer said. “We’re not gonna put up with it.”

Irie Sentner, Myah Ward, Emily Ngo and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.