Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal who represents Washington’s 7th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives will succeed Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren to serve on the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

Jayapal, 57, has been named Ranking Member of the US House Judiciary Committee’s panel on Immigration, making her the first immigrant to serve in a leadership role for the subcommittee.

In the United States, a ranking member is the most senior member of a congressional or state legislative committee from the minority party. The fight to reform immigration laws has been a core tenet of Pramila Jayapal’s work in Congress. Before coming to Congress, Jayapal was a longtime organizer and activist for immigrants’ rights.

Pramila Jayapal statement

“As the first South Asian woman elected to the US House of Representatives and one of only two dozen naturalized citizens in Congress, I am honored and humbled to serve as the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement,”  Pramila Jayapal said in a statement.

“I came to this country when I was 16, alone, and with nothing in my pockets. After 17 years on an alphabet soup of visas to become a US citizen, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to live the American Dream, a dream that is out of reach for too many immigrants today.” Jayapal, a Democrat, said that in her new role, she will focus on the country’s broken immigration system around dignity, humanity, and justice.

Her appointment comes as the immigrant visa backlog in the US increased by nearly 9,000 in the month of January, according to the Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC).

The number of people scheduled for green card interviews increased by nearly 3,000 from December 2022 to January.

The NVC scheduled 36,167 interviews in January, compared to 33,406 in December.

The White House is looking into the recommendations to reduce the adjudication and processing of Green Card applications to just six months and remove all the backlogs by April 2023.

Also read: Adani Group Decides To Call Off Follow-On Public Offer (FPO)