Chennai-born Pramila Jayapal, only ex-H-1B holder in Congress, wins sixth term

Washington, Nov 4 (SocialNews.XYZ) Pramila Jayapal, the India-born Democrat who became the first South Asian American woman elected to the US House of Representatives and is the only member of Congress to have held both a student visa and an H-1B work visa, has won a sixth term.

Jayapal is the winner in Washington state's 7th congressional district over Republican Nirav Sheth by about 88 per cent to 12 per cent, with about 54 per cent of the vote counted when the race was called.

The win returns her to a House that Democrats will control, where she is the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee.

On election night, she hailed Florida's Pia Dandiya as "the third South Asian American woman (along with me and Aishabb Wahab)" headed to the House.

Jayapal was "born in India, grew up in India, Indonesia and Singapore, and came to the United States by herself at the age of 16 to attend college at Georgetown University." She later earned an MBA from Northwestern University.

In a 2023 statement, she described India as "the country of my birth, where my parents still live," and said she had been a citizen of India "for three decades."

"The fact that I could come to the United States, become a US citizen, and eventually a member of Congress is a testament to the American dream, and to the incredibly strong and close ties between the people of our two countries," she said.

Jayapal has used her own immigration history to challenge the Trump administration's curbs on legal immigration, including the $100,000 H-1B visa fee. At a congressional hearing in December 2025, she said the administration was "shutting down legal pathways to immigrate," calling it "reminiscent of a legacy of discriminatory quotas." She also flagged rising "anti-Indian hate."

At the same hearing she criticised the tariffs on Indian goods. "These tariffs are damaging India's economy and also hurting American businesses and consumers," she said, according to The Indian EYE.

After the April 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam, she said: "This violence is unacceptable. I condemn the horrific attack in Pahalgam, India that took the lives of innocent civilians."

By an IANS calculation from House Clerk records, she voted with the majority of Democrats about 96 per cent of the time on roll calls from January 2025 to mid-September 2026. She missed about 48 votes, the most of the three Indian American Democrats re-elected on Tuesday, including June 2026 votes on Iran and Lebanon war powers and Ukraine aid.

Clerk records show she opposed every Republican immigration bill in that period, including the Laken Riley Act and the Deporting Fraudsters Act, and voted against the 2026 and 2027 defence authorisation bills, the Republican reconciliation bill and the January 2026 spending package. She voted for war-powers resolutions on Iran and for ending the national emergency underpinning tariffs on Canada.

She chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is now its chair emerita. She also chairs the immigration task force of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee's South and Central Asia subcommittee and the Budget Committee, according to her website.

She is the lead House sponsor of the Medicare for All Act and author of the College for All Act, the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act and the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, her website says. Her priorities include a path to citizenship, a $15 minimum wage and collective bargaining rights.

Her campaign raised about $3 million in the 2026 cycle and had about $2 million in cash on hand as of October 14, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Source: IANS