JoAnna Mendoza, Arizona Democratic congressional candidate: ‘Undocumented people deserve a pathway to citizenship’

The smell of tortillas cooking on a comal used to wake JoAnna Mendoza every morning. It was 4 a.m., and her mother was already preparing breakfast for the family: burritos. Soon afterward, they would all board a bus bound for Arizona’s agricultural fields. Mendoza was only nine years old at the time, but she, too, took part in the grueling workdays.

The family survived with the help of a government food assistance program, though even that was sometimes not enough. “I remember one month when we didn’t have gas for heating. So the water for our showers was cold,” she recalls.

Enlisting in the armed forces was her only escape from poverty. She later worked in a congressman’s office, an experience that drew her toward politics.

Today, Mendoza has a distinctive profile: she is a single mother, identifies as queer, served for two decades in the Navy and Marine Corps, grew up in poverty near the southern border, is bilingual, and had a Mexican stepfather who was able to regularize his status under the immigration amnesty signed by president Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Armed with that personal and political background, Mendoza is seeking to win what is considered a crucial seat in Democrats’ battle to retake the House of Representatives and push back against President Donald Trump’s policies.

She hopes to represent Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, which stretches across part of the U.S.-Mexico border region. Trump and the district’s current representative, Republican Juan Ciscomani, narrowly carried the area in the 2024 election. Democrats are aiming to flip the district and rebuild support among Latino voters in November’s general election.

Among Mendoza’s key proposals are greater federal government accountability and oversight of spending and actions, as well as stronger oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She also advocates measures to ease the economic struggles of vulnerable families. Agricultural workers today, she argues, face hardships similar to those she experienced as a child in the 1980s.

Mendoza also supports a proposal that appears difficult to advance in the current political climate: creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who “work hard, follow the law, and contribute to their communities.”

Her position stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s immigration agenda, which has launched a mass deportation campaign targeting even immigrants with no criminal record.

Question. How do you approach the challenge of running in what is considered one of the most competitive congressional races, a seat that could potentially give Democrats the majority in the House?

Answer. Since we launched the campaign, we have been going out into the district, visiting small communities, talking to folks, and really listening to them about what they need. And everyone is telling us that right now they can’t afford to survive; they’re working two to three jobs. People have gotten kicked off safety net programs like SNAP [which helps low-income individuals and families buy food] and Medicaid here in Arizona. Almost 500.000 people have been kicked off of SNAP. That includes kids too. And here in Arizona, kids enrolled in SNAP or whose families are enrolled are able to get meals at school during the summer. We don’t know if those kids actually were able to access food during the summer, which is horrible. So we’re focused on just going around letting people know that they have an option. They don’t have to vote for Mr. Siskimani in November. I am someone who’s going to serve the community. I’m going to make sure that we take that fight to Washington.

Q. Why is it important for Democrats to win control of the House of Representatives?

A. We’re going to win because we have no other choice. We have to win because people are suffering a lot. And that, for me, is the motivation: that sense of urgency, knowing that people — families like mine who are going through the same experiences I did growing up — are suffering right now. But what people should know is we must not fall for the trick. Mr. Siskimani has been going around saying: “Oh, I’m going to protect food stamps, healthcare, and jobs.” But it’s not true. We need to stay vigilant.

Q. You advocate creating legal pathways to citizenship for immigrants. But right now that proposal may seem difficult to achieve. Why do you believe it is possible?

A. It has been too long, under both Democrats and Republican administrations, that we haven’t done anything about immigration reform, and about ensuring that we’re creating pathways to citizenship. People who are here, documented or undocumented, contribute to the economy. They provide labor for the agricultural community, for construction. This administration is actively creating distractions so that we don’t focus on the things that matter most right now to people, like being safe and secure in this country, in their communities, ensuring that they’re able to raise a family and their kids, get jobs, raise a family, have health care access, the ability to pay for gas, and that we’re not sending our kids to wars that have no end in sight and have no strategy. So my opinion again is that yes, we do need to create those pathways [to citizenship], and we need to start now, and even if it doesn’t happen until after we take over the White House, we have to keep working towards that, because the people of this country deserve that.

Q. Your district lies along the Arizona-Mexico border, and one of your proposals involves “increasing border security, the deportation of criminals, and holding cartels accountable.” Some argue that increasing border security forces migrants into more dangerous areas on the border, putting them at risk of death.

A. I think we need to modernize our border security. As a Marine, someone who spent a lifetime serving this nation, it’s important to me that people in our communities feel safe, and that we’re enforcing the rule of law, but also that we’re treating people humanely and with dignity. We can keep the border secure. I’ve spoken to Hispanic and Latino people who say, “look, we want the border secure too.” In addition, we need to make sure that ICE agents are doing their job properly, that they’re properly trained, that they are following the rule of law, and guarantee that, if they deviate from that (as we’ve seen happen), they are held accountable for their actions.

Q. There is a climate of fear...

A. I’m a mother, and I take my kid to school in the morning. I’m afraid they’ll pull me over. Then what would happen? I’m a single mom; what’s going to happen to my kid? And they’re not snatching up criminals; they’re not taking criminals. They’re taking mothers, veterans, small business owners, and our neighbors. And the truth is that Democrats and Republicans have both kicked the can down the road when it comes to border security and immigration reform. It needs to be addressed.

Q. Speaking of ICE, more than 50 migrants have died in ICE custody, and in recent months, migrants and even U.S. citizens have been shot and killed during immigration raids. There is a movement to abolish ICE. Do you think ICE should be abolished, given its track record?

A. No, I do not. And here’s the reason why: because abolishing an agency does not stop the unethical and unlawful behavior. We saw this with the Immigration and Nationalization Services when that was disbanded. The people [who work there] don’t just go away. They separated them into three entities, and now we’re continuing to see very similar impacts where you have agents who are doing things that are wrong, unlawful, and unconstitutional. I believe that we need reform, accountability, and oversight. We need clear audits in the detention centers.

Q. As you know, ICE’s budget was raised under Trump’s administration. Do you think it should be cut?

A. What I think is that it’s necessary to ensure that the money is being used appropriately. There were reports that they were hiring people, offering $50,000 bonuses to anybody. The agents weren’t being properly vetted. They didn’t have security clearance screenings. They were not being trained properly or at all. We have to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We cannot give money to an agency right now that is terrorizing our communities. It should not receive any more funding until it gets back in line with what the rule of law says.

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