FAMILY VALUES

GOP Candidate Who Railed Against DREAMers Had an Undocumented Grandmother

And unlike many DREAMers, Adam Laxalt’s grandmother was able to hire a lawyer to fix her immigration status.

Nevada’s Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt has taken a firm stance against illegal immigration and against protecting the rights of DREAMers. But that comes in stark contrast to his own family history. Laxalt’s late father, former New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici—the state’s longest serving U.S. Senator–once revealed in a 2006 speech that Laxalt’s Italian grandmother was undocumented, according to Axios. After coming to the U.S. at the age of 3, she “unknowingly was an illegal alien,” Domenici said, and federal immigration officials detained her during the early 1940s. After six months, Domenici said his family paid for a lawyer who helped fix her immigration status, amending her “certificate of arrival” to say she came in legally, according to Axios. Now, many immigrants don’t have the same opportunities and are instead deported, DREAMer activist Astrid Silva told Axios.