US Congressional District 8

A: We have to reimburse tenured government employees for DOGE abuses. AI is so intricate that it can help model this, but we must tax AI huge as you can have a one- or no-person company with a trillion-dollar trajectory. I want to add a voluntary FICA tax column for Medicaid and we can do this for other priorities like food and shelter security in addition to preserving existing funding. This is a method to generate voluntary tax revenue that should be easy to legislate. For example, on our tax returns, we can approve contributions to the FEC presidential elections and this would work similarly. We always have to be careful about increasing taxes and taxing everything. We need to help those that can return to work, empathetically, patiently, proactively. The welfare spiral causes low self-esteem, mental, physical health problems, isolation, fear. I have a $250 billion economic work program plan for our county and $30 weekly basics grocery and home needs package. We should also consider increasing the retirement age and giving more vacation time during young work years, like eight weeks (two weeks every quarter) where an elderly person can substitute for you and they earn extra cash.

A: We can mitigate ICE controversies by heavily penalizing employers, expanding the H2B seasonal worker program for labor shortage jobs, legalize tenured civil rights-adhering Established Immigrant Migrant (now Merit) Communities. I have proposed to local government an EIMC local residency and safety card from an illegals/undocumented background that will be required to pass civil rights and constitutional protections-adherence certifications. We must maintain diversity in our immigration. We must enforce our immigration laws, protect the American worker and maintain our diversity. I want to legalize tenured EIMC by the following method for those here prior to POTUS 2025 only. Work permits for those here less than five years. Permanent residency for those here 5 to 10 years and citizenship for those here over 10 to 15 years. I guarantee to get this done. I can do this simply by my sincerity, passion and negotiating skills and creative ideas to protect our border from further abuse. This is the proper thing to do. How to prevent future issues? PENALIZE EMPLOYERS HEAVILY, invest in this instead of increasing budgets for ICE and DHS, although we need these enforcements also, just in a no-controversy, no-totalitarian method.

A: I’m a pragmatic capitalist. I state this because I understand cause and effect. Why do we have the opposite of communism? This is due to abuses by non-regulated capitalism. So today we have a hybrid capitalism system whereby government has to assert itself as and when necessary including having rules, laws, legislation in place to ensure that we can maximize the abilities of our citizenry and country. I’m a student of economic theories and we should not go backwards. The constitution gives us freedom of assembly and this takes many forms like all the different departments we create within the executive branch, the legislative committees in Congress, etc. A hierarchy legal system. These are all forms of organizations, a foundation to build on, improve. We should not stop individuals and groups from progress, prosperity. We all work to achieve, be successful. The issue here is the position of trust in politics which can affect the whole country and globe. So, I DO NOT SUPPORT TRADING OF INDIVIDUAL STOCKS. INVESTMENTS YES, TRADING NO. I support the Restore Trust in Congress Act because the Stock Act is not sufficient. However, we must allow individuals, families, groups to advance, thrive.

A: Currently, our global power center and Nation’s Capital is shifting to Central America. I have prioritized good relations with Mexico, China, Brazil, our historical Colonial America establishment by and with the United Kingdom. Britain and Europe formerly colonized Africa and also the European Union. The Central American and Hispanic vote in this and future elections will be significant, but I’m reminding all that we, our USA, already achieved lone superpower status in the early 1990s, manifest destiny, coast to coast, ocean to ocean many years before the arrival of Latin American and Central American Illegals/Undocumenteds, many who are now established immigrant migrant communities. The wealth of our USA is due to our association with the British Empire, the British Commonwealth. So, I do this all the time because I’m passionate about issues that are important to me. I will fight for you, protect you. I cannot be bought. I cannot be extorted. I’m not greedy for money. I’m not materialistic. I’m comfortable in any setting. I don’t care for luxury. I like to earn this. I believe in meritocracy and also respect generational merit. Today, many do not respect, give deference to elders, generational merit. This is terrible for society.

A: I understand our long history of humanity, our struggles to our advancements and conveniences. I’m a 21st century pragmatic candidate who should be given a podium to explain all this. I have a unique background and our America needs this now. I volunteered for the campaigns of Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama and for Hillary Clinton. I helped several national campaigns win and contributed to successful VP selections, etc. My grandfather was an editor at leading news publications in India and later accepted an assignment in Washington, D.C., during President Reagan’s administration. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute is eliminating Mexican-American membership and will be the most influential with more than 1 billion members in this hemisphere, so we need somebody of my background that will represent all the citizenry here and all the continents and specifically Americans (those of Colonial establishment, British America lineage).

I had unique access and was immersed in this from a young age through local news, Sunday morning political shows, PBS, VOA, delivering the Washington Post, etc. I have an intricate understanding of domestic and international issues. Because of my education, experience, intellectual curiosity and work ethic I understand issues at a granular and macro level.

A: Balancing the budget without raising taxes requires increasing GDP with private investment. Specifically, technologies which do not emit carbon into the atmosphere. Further, it is important to always remember that responsible capitalism funds our general welfare the same.

A: Moderate amnesty ought to be granted for those who can show a record of working. Some industries depend on certain labor, e.g., farming. Mandating the example with our Central & South American neighbors to resolve climate change will mitigate the poor socioeconomic driving factors for illegal immigration. More details are provided on my campaign’s website.

A: Members of Congress should not be actively stock trading. Although I support a “blind-trust” ban for the elected and their spouses, even with enactment, incumbents would still be compromised. People should consider the nature of their elected member’s stock, to include other means of direct profiting, when considering their vote.

A: Ha! Who doesn’t have plenty of moments in our respective families, employment, or community? Okay, take a look at my campaign’s social media feeds. That should suffice.

A: Solving priorities at the root with bills analogous to patents, across any aisle or seat, which have been concisely and methodically listed on my campaign’s website. I am always open to new ideas, from anywhere, at anytime.

A: Rather than work with Democrats to extend ACA health insurance tax credits, protect Medicare and Medicaid, and keep hospitals from closing, Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans chose to use their control of the House, the Senate and the White House to shut down the government and continue their corruption of the government and plunder of the economy for the richest Americans.

While congressional Republicans followed orders from President Trump, who instructed them not to negotiate during the most recent shutdown, Democrats have repeatedly stood ready to negotiate to avoid shutdowns and the threat of shutdowns which hurt all Americans, including seniors, young people and the tens of thousands of federal workers who call Maryland’s beautiful 8th Congressional District home.

A: Montgomery County is home to many vibrant immigrant communities and it is an honor to represent our wonderfully diverse district in the House of Representatives, where I consistently push for comprehensive immigration reform, strong protections for refugees and asylum seekers, and humane and pragmatic policies at the border.

In Congress, I have proudly co-sponsored the bipartisan American Dream and Promise Act to provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers — immigrants brought to the United States as children — and to families who have lived here for years due to natural disasters or conflicts in their native countries. I have also advocated for federal policy changes to prioritize family unity, including the American Families United Act, to give immigration judges authority to stop deportation if it would separate spouses or children and to allow immediate family of citizens to apply for waivers from inside the United States.

A: The floor of the House of Representatives is not the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Members of Congress should give up trading individual stocks—a small price to pay for strengthening public trust in the institution.

That’s why I have co-sponsored legislation like the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act and the Restore Trust in Congress Act to ensure the government is used as an instrument of the common good, not private self-enrichment.

A: As the lead House impeachment manager in the second Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, I introduced with my fellow managers a mountain of evidence that Trump had incited a violent insurrection against our constitutional order. Our overwhelming case produced the most bipartisan Senate vote to convict an impeached president in U.S. history, 57-43, and although Trump beat the two-thirds constitutional spread, we convicted him in the court of public opinion and in the eternal eyes of history.

I was also proud to serve on the January 6th Select Committee, which detailed Trump’s organizing role in the insurrection and concluded with the referral of Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution on four federal counts. This year, I was especially proud to join hundreds of Democrats outside multiple federal agencies, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, as we stood up to the Trump administration and protested the mass firings of thousands of federal workers.

A: [No response provided]

A: Federal workers, military families, and the people who depend on government services should never again be used as poker chips in a budget fight. I support automatic continuing resolutions, but only for the people. Workers keep getting paid. Veterans keep getting their benefits. Food inspections keep happening. Air traffic controllers keep showing up. The lights stay on for us.

The lights go off for the consulting firms, the corporate contractors, and the discretionary spending that lines the pockets of the politically connected. Hit the shutdown where it hurts the powerful, not where it hurts working people. That is how you restore the accountability pressure shutdowns were supposed to create in the first place. I also support no budget, no pay for members of Congress. If you cannot do the basic work, you do not get paid for it. Frankly, that is the floor. If Congress cannot pass a budget on time, year after year, the voters should be allowed to replace them, not in the next election cycle, but now. The members who treat budgeting as a hostage negotiation are usually the ones whose net worth makes a missed paycheck irrelevant. The rest of us cannot afford that game.

A: Yes. The current system is cruel by design, and it is cruel because cruelty is profitable. I would end for-profit immigration detention. The CoreCivic and GEO Group boards have made millions caging human beings, including children, and no country that calls itself decent should let private shareholders profit from a child behind a fence. I would end family separation as a tool of enforcement, under any administration of any party, with no exceptions. And I would decouple immigration enforcement from local law enforcement by ending 287(g) agreements and ICE detainers, so that a parent dropping a kid off at school is not afraid of being disappeared.

How do I forge bipartisan support? Not by negotiating with members of Congress who are bought by the oligarchs and the for-profit jail industry that funds them. Those members are not going to listen, because their interests are the interests of the people who profit from the cruelty. I forge support by going district by district, organizing the people their members of Congress are supposed to be serving, and applying pressure everywhere at once. Bipartisanship in Washington starts with accountability at home. That is how you move a vote.

A: Absolutely not. Members of Congress should not be permitted to own individual stocks, let alone trade them. The bills currently moving through Congress are paper tigers that let members keep existing portfolios indefinitely. I would ban ownership outright, with mandatory divestment within 180 days, applied to spouses and dependents, because the loophole is the family member, not the member.

I would go further than anyone currently proposing reform: retroactive audits of trades made by sitting and recently departed members. Justice is blind, not forgetful. The STOCK Act has nominally banned congressional insider trading since 2012 and has been enforced almost never. If gains were made on information the public did not have, those gains should be clawed back. I am inspired by Lincoln, who signed the False Claims Act to punish war profiteers selling rotten meat to the Union Army, and by FDR, who built the SEC to police the looting of Wall Street. I want to abstract their conviction to our moment: criminal penalties, mandatory disgorgement, lifetime bans from lobbying and federal contracting, and citizen-led whistleblower suits. The powerful must be policed. That work has never been finished. It falls to us.

A: The moments that shaped me most in the Marine Corps were the small ones, when nobody was watching and rank tried to do the work that only character can.

Shortly after I was promoted to corporal, a sergeant ordered my Marines to pick up diapers another unit had left by the dumpster. I refused, and volunteered to go find the Marines who actually made the mess. The sergeant yelled at me that he was a sergeant. I yelled back that I was a corporal. My Marines’ dignity was preserved. Another time, another corporal tried to pull my guys onto a detail right before they could eat. I told him no. My Marines ate. A third time, on a detail, a sergeant told me to hang back and let the junior Marines do the work. I reminded him that a corporal is a working supervisor. My dignity was preserved. Authority that does not work alongside its people is not authority worth obeying. I learned that as a young NCO and I have carried it through every job since. In Congress, I intend, as John Lewis said, to get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

A: What is missing from Congress is someone who cannot be bought, because nobody can. I have accepted zero dollars from PACs, zero dollars from corporations, and zero dollars from individual donors. Not as a gimmick. As proof. Proof that a candidate can run for federal office on the strength of his record and the conviction of his neighbors, and proof that the people I will answer to in Washington are the same people I answer to at the grocery store in Rockville.

What else is missing: a Marine NCO who knows what it is to be responsible for other people’s lives, a son of Salvadoran immigrants who watched his parents earn this country, a working technologist with active national security experience, and a community college graduate who can tell a working family that the path their kid is on is a real path. That coalition does not exist in Congress. It exists in this district, and it is overdue for representation. If elected, I will do what I know how to do. Protect the people who sent me, and strike fear in the enemies of this country, foreign and domestic. The oath does not expire.

A: I’m running as a Republican who believes in fiscal responsibility and functional government. Shutdowns are a failure of leadership —but so is a budgeting process that avoids hard decisions until the last minute. Part of the problem is how polarized Washington has become. Too often, elected officials — especially those in safe seats — are rewarded for amplifying division instead of solving problems. That leads to brinksmanship instead of planning, and uncertainty instead of stability. But tone alone won’t fix it — we also need structural changes. I support an automatic continuing resolution to prevent shutdowns, paired with enforceable spending discipline so Congress still has to make responsible budget decisions. We should return to regular order — passing appropriations bills on time, with transparency and accountability instead of last-minute omnibus deals. I also believe we need to take a harder look at how taxpayer dollars are spent. Agencies shouldn’t just build on last year’s budget by default — they should periodically justify their spending from the ground up, so we are funding what works and eliminating what doesn’t. Predictability comes from a willingness to do the work early, negotiate in good faith, and follow through. That’s the approach I would bring to Congress.

A: Yes, our immigration system is not working as it should and needs serious reform. Campaign rhetoric about a “broken system” is often used as a slogan, but what matters is fixing the specific points where the system is failing. I have direct experience with this issue having worked for the U.S. State Department overseas applying the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) in visa and nationality adjudications. That gave me firsthand experience applying our immigration laws in real cases and seeing how policy functions in practice, where it works as intended and where it breaks down under real-world pressure. I also have personal experience with the immigration system as a naturalized U.S. citizen, which reinforces the importance of a process that is clear, predictable, and consistently applied. We need to strengthen border security, improve staffing and technology, and ensure the asylum system is processed quickly and is not subject to abuse or unnecessary delay. At the same time, we should modernize legal immigration to reflect economic needs and reduce backlogs so the system rewards lawful entry and supports national priorities.

Bipartisan progress will come from focusing on practical fixes — border capacity, asylum processing, and legal immigration efficiency — rather than ideological packages.

A: Members of Congress should not be trading individual stocks while in office. While there are existing rules, they are not sufficient to ensure public confidence in the system. Currently, members are subject to the STOCK Act, which requires disclosure of certain trades and affirms that insider trading laws apply to Congress. Members must also file periodic transaction reports and annual financial disclosures. However, these requirements do not go far enough to ensure that conflicts of interest and potential insider trading can be effectively identified and investigated. Because trades are often reported weeks after they occur, transparency is delayed. Penalties for violations are limited, and enforcement actions are rare. Importantly, there is still no prohibition on trading individual stocks, and no requirement for blind trusts or divestment from individual securities. For that reason, I support stronger rules that go beyond disclosure. Members of Congress should either divest from individual stocks or place assets in qualified blind trusts, and be limited to broadly diversified investments that remove the risk of trading on non-public information.

The current framework does not go far enough to ensure the standard that meets the public’s trust.

A: When you stand up to someone in authority, it is because you are working toward an outcome you believe is necessary and defensible. In my current role, I lead the strategic design, relationship building, and diplomatic coordination of multi-country engagements, including initiating and shaping high-level meetings that require significant institutional alignment and resources. In this case, I had developed the strategic framework for a multi-country engagement involving senior-level meetings across multiple governments on a nine-day itinerary. During execution, logistical constraints — including limited flight availability, cost, and shifting schedules in the preceding country — created pressure that led to a decision at senior level to cancel one stop in the itinerary. I was asked to communicate the cancellation to the host country, which I did. However, based on my assessment of the diplomatic commitments already in motion, the time it had taken to arrive at a trip and the relationships involved, I believed the cancellation would create significant institutional and credibility consequences that were not fully captured in the operational assessment. I raised those concerns directly with leadership and escalated the issue through appropriate channels. Following that review, the decision was reversed and the trip proceeded as originally planned.

A: What I will bring to Congress is a governing focus grounded in execution, accountability, and results for families. We have all seen how Congress rewards political positioning over problem-solving. What is missing is sustained attention to the issues that directly affect people’s daily lives — affordability, public safety, immigration system functionality, and fiscal discipline. My background has required working across governments and institutions to turn complex agreements into outcomes. That experience has reinforced the importance of clarity, follow-through, and being willing to make decisions based on real-world consequences rather than political convenience. I am running on a FAMILY FIR$T approach — because the central question for voters is whether their representative is focused on improving life at home. That means lower costs, more functional government, and policies that reflect the realities families are facing right now. I have a consistency of focus and enjoy being present in the district, accountable to constituents, and committed to measurable results rather than rhetoric, posturing or distraction. The goal is not more politics, but better outcomes for the people I will represent.