Brookfield and Riverside’s congressman took to foreign soil over the weekend to discuss issues facing the United States and its neighbors here in the Western Hemisphere.
From Aug. 2-5, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García participated in the inaugural Panamerican Congress in Bogotá, Colombia, alongside progressive parliamentarians from countries across North, Central and South America. The purpose of the gathering was to discuss democracy, peace and the climate crisis, which the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a sponsor of the event, called the Congress’s “main areas of hemispheric cooperation.”
García was one member of a U.S. delegation at the event, alongside Reps. Greg Casar (D-TX) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL). Renata Beca-Barragán, the legislative director for Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), also attended. They joined nearly 40 other legislators and five special guests who hailed from Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, primarily representing the countries’ left-leaning governments and political parties.
According to the event’s website, over the course of the long weekend, the Congress’s delegates “develop[ed] a vision for the hemisphere, an agenda for cooperation and a roadmap for the future of the Congress.”
García spoke about the climate crisis and young people’s response to it at the Congress, according to CEPR.
“The man-made climate and environmental crisis has always been a regional challenge. And it demands our urgent response,” he said. “We’ve seen unprecedented mobilization around the world driven by young people, fighting for a planet they can live on and for the major policy shift that gets us there.”
He added: “It’s their timeline we are playing with when governments refuse to act. And as powerful corporations use right-wing allies to block meaningful reform, their advocacy is deeply entwined to the themes of democracy and peace.”
According to Politico, García said in a written statement after returning from the Congress that he is concerned about an “increasingly coordinated group of right-wing politicians, who use election denial, lawfare and repression to consolidate their power.”
