NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Participates in Historic Launch of Panamerican Congress

WASHINGTON – This past weekend, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) joined Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) and Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) for the inaugural gathering of the Panamerican Congress. Close to 40 progressive lawmakers from North, Central, and South America united in Bogotá, Colombia to focus on challenges facing the Western Hemisphere, including democracy, the climate crisis, and peace. 

Delegates presented a diversity of perspectives and discussed common principles to advance the priorities in each area. The Congress also provided a space for parliamentarians to share best practices and successful policy strategies in their respective legislatures.

“My colleagues and I are committed to doing what we can to push U.S. policy in a direction that helps foster peace in the region. That means pushing for reforms to our own gun laws and ensuring it’s harder to traffick these guns across the border. It also means changing current and past U.S. policies that have helped fuel violence across the region,” said Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas). “In the United States, we must reckon with the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine and the violence that resulted from it. The War on Drugs, the heavily militarized response to drug production and trafficking, launched over 50 years ago led to the expansion of the drug trade and an explosion of violence that affects our citizens and also those in Latin America.” 

“The man-made climate and environmental crisis has always been a regional challenge. And it demands our urgent response. 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,” said Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.). “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.”

“The goal of this Congress is not merely to exchange ideas — it is to begin to forge a new relationship between our nations. A relationship based on respect, sovereign equality, and cooperation to take on common challenges. As representatives from the United States, it is not lost on us that many of the challenges discussed here are connected, in some way, to our nation’s troubling record of treating this hemisphere as our own ‘backyard’ — often with devastating consequences for the peoples of this region,” said Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.). “We in the US delegation return to Washington with a renewed sense of urgency — on the need to make the United States a ‘good neighbor’ to its brothers and sisters across the Americas.” 

“During the Panamerican Congress, legislators from around the region engaged in a remarkable exchange of ideas on how to cooperate and seek common solutions to the shared challenges of the climate crisis, threats to democracy, and the many violent conflicts still raging in the hemisphere, often fueled by the drug war and U.S. weapons,” said Alex Main, Director of International Policy for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which sponsored the Congress.

The U.S. delegation, which also included Nydia Velazquez’s (D-NY) legislative director, Renata Beca-Barragán, was joined by close to 40 lawmakers from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, as well as special guests from Barbados, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. Senior Colombian government officials were present at the Congress, including Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Susana Muhamad.

The Panamerican Congress builds on relationships developed during a U.S. Congressional delegation to South America one year ago, and on ideas lawmakers have exchanged with Colombian President Gustavo Petro and other Latin American leaders. 

Read more:

• LA Times: U.S. lawmakers join Latin American counterparts to form Panamerican Congress

• El País: Por la paz y contra el autoritarismo: diputados progresistas de toda América se reúnen en Bogotá en su primer Congreso Panamericano

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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio.  A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.