The bedrock of the American dream is Lubbock and West Texas as far as Abraham Enriquez is concerned. He’s running for Congress to take the seat Jodey Arrington will soon leave.
“My grandparents, they came to West Texas and they were farm workers. Two generations later, their grandson has the opportunity to represent the very same land that my grandparents picked cotton and cantaloupes in,” Enriquez said.
“That’s the American dream that I believe is still alive in West Texas and that’s the American dream that I want to fight to protect,” said Enriquez, who was born and raised in Lubbock.
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He graduated from Monterey High School, then Abilene Christian University with a double major in political science and Spanish.
“I credit a lot of ACU for how I lead, how I build coalitions. But more importantly, how I give back to the community,” Enriquez said.
“Right after college, I came right back to Lubbock. And from here, I built an organization that now has provided the experience and the momentum to run for Congress,” Enriquez said.
Bienvenido is that organization.
“But in that summer, I kind of couldn’t sit still and I was seeing this really big push for Latinx ideology in the Hispanic community. … We were no longer allowed to call each other Latino or Latina. That was like ‘Latinx.’ And it really didn’t sit still with me. And so I started a movement called Bienvenido,” Enriquez said.
“It was just me and a couple friends from across the state,” Enriquez said.
But he said they set records for first-time registered Republican voters in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods.
“All of that gained some traction. And before I know it, I’m invited to the White House to do a Hispanic leadership summit,” Enriquez said.
“From 2018 to 2020, I had a front row seat how the Trump administration was bringing in the Hispanic community to help shape policy. … I’ll always be thankful for the Trump administration and the president for opening doors for me and more importantly, for my community,” Enriquez.
That led to interviews with CNN and Fox News.
“I became a nationally recognized figure as it pertains to Republican politics,” Enriquez said.
What are the priorities?
The number 1 “kitchen table” issue he hears about is the cost of living, Enriquez said.
“You have families right now – young families my age – that are delaying having children or starting a family because, to them, the economic relief just hasn’t been there. The cost of living still hasn’t been alleviated to them. People are desperately asking, when will I be able to purchase a home? Those are very common conversations that I’m having,” Enriquez said.
Enriquez mentioned to LubbockLights.com the development of data centers.
“There is significant investment and growth coming in, which is exciting to most, but also a little cautious to others – and what I mean by that was billions of dollars of investments into these data centers,” Enriquez said.
Enriquez wants to make sure the development of data centers is careful to consider the issue of water usage.
He also touched on the border.
“We need to ensure that we’re codifying President Trump’s border policies on day one. … It’s mostly through executive order, which means it’s going to take one more Democrat president to go in there and cause the chaos that we saw under the Biden administration,” Enriquez said.
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Enriquez thinks Congress would move faster if lawmakers were on a deadline in the form of term limits.
“I believe in term limits, and I will vote on any policy that I would say is an appropriate time frame for term limits,” Enriquez said.
He also thinks it’s not enough be conservative. The representative for Lubbock and Abilene must be able to build what he calls a broad coalition.
As evidence, he mentioned the recent special election to fill Texas State Senate District 9 (Fort Worth). Democrat Taylor Rehmet won the seat in a district previously carried by Donald Trump by 17 points.
“We’re not that far away from what just happened in that special election,” Enriquez said.
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