Trump administration border czar Tom Homan called Rep. Delia Ramirez’s (D-IL) recent comments about her identity “disgusting” on Wednesday.
“I think what she said was disgusting,” Homan said, responding to a question from the press.
“She’s serving at the privilege of her state, her voters put her in there, so I think her commitment should be to her state, and to the people who put her in that position… and I think what she said there was, in a veiled way, supporting illegal aliens from Guatemala over here,” Homan continued, before pledging to deport every illegal immigrant from Guatemala in the country.
The reporter who asked the question quoted Ramirez’ statement, claiming she said “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”
Speaking to the Panamerican Congress in the Mexican Senate in Mexico City on Friday, Ramirez made a statement primarily in English before switching to Spanish at the end, describing her personal identity.
“Yo soy una Guatemalteca con mucho orgullo, primero que soy Americana,” Ramirez said.
If this phrase is directly translated on its own, it means “I am a Guatemalan with great pride, first of all I am American.”
Google Translate, SpanishDictionary.com, and DeepL Translator, along with native Spanish speakers online such as director of non-profit Our ‘America’ Gabriel Nadales, validate this translation.
However, if the preceding clause, “Quiero terminar diciendo unas palabras en español porque,” meaning “I want to finish by saying a few words in Spanish because,” is included, the online translators along with Guatemalan news site La Hora all translate the phrase as Ramirez saying she is Guatemalan first.
According to fact-checking website Snopes, her Spanish grammar in this sentence is somewhat incorrect and stilted, leaving her statement up for interpretation.
The translation claiming she said she is Guatemalan first originated from The Blaze, and quickly spread online. Conservative influencers such as Matt Walsh were joined by politicians such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) in sharing that translation.
Several posts also called for Ramirez to be deported, despite being a U.S. citizen born in Chicago.
“Denaturalize, deport, and kick her off Homeland Committee. We know where her allegiances lie,” Ogles said in a post on X.
The translation from The Blaze even reached the Department of Homeland Security, whose official account on X reposted it alongside a Theodore Roosevelt quote about there being “no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.”
Ramirez responded to the outrage in a statement on Monday, saying “today’s attacks are a weak attempt to silence my dissent and invalidate my patriotic criticism of the nativist, white supremacist, authoritarians in government.”
Her statement did not deny the accuracy of the translation indicating she claimed to be Guatemalan first. Off The Press reached out to Ramirez’s office for comment on the translation accuracy, and did not receive an immediate response.
She noted that nobody “questions when my white colleagues identify as Irish-American, Italian-American, or Ukrainian-American to honor their ancestry,” and said her identity as an American is made stronger by her Guatemalan heritage.
“Anyone who denies our claim on this country simply because we dare to honor our diverse heritage and immigrant roots only exposes how fragile and small-minded their own idea of America really is,” she concluded.
