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ABOUT
I didn’t plan to run for Congress. A son of working-class immigrants, my goals were far less lofty: emulate my parents’ values of caring for your community and to try to make them proud.
For over twenty years, I’ve been chasing these goals. I've been working to support people everyday, building institutions that keep families together and people in their homes. It started at The Bronx Defenders, where I advocated for community members confronting housing instability, job insecurity, loss of public benefits and healthcare barriers. Every day I worked to undo the harm they were facing, every night I went to law school.
On their worst days, at their most vulnerable, I showed up and fought to ease their burden. I had a simple plan: do good work, navigate broken systems, and make life a little less difficult for the families who came through our doors.
And it worked. We kept countless families together and people in homes. We helped them access employment, food assistance, Medicaid, and other essential support.
Twenty years of building institutions, proving that innovative systems can serve people instead of grinding them down.
WHY I'm running
I became a civil defense attorney because even as a child, I couldn’t understand why the legal system wasn’t fair, why outcomes were determined by the size of your wallet rather than what was right or just. In Harlem, I built a new model with the sole purpose of creating a system of representation and care, one that saw the whole person and worked to deliver impactful outcomes in every facet of their life. At Partners for Justice, I worked to scale that model nationally, across urban and rural cities, large and small states, and everywhere in between.
That work taught me two crucial things:
First, the government can work when it's built for people. When the right person understands how systems connect, where they break, and has the vision, skill, and determination to fix them. Second, building better systems from the inside only matters if they work for everyone and if no one is allowed to tear the whole thing down from the top.
I've represented families all over NY. The father who came to the U.S. as a child and built a life, now facing deportation for a decades-old indiscretion. The mother who called in a panic because her landlord padlocked her door. The teenager trapped in a legal system designed to criminalize poverty, not solve it.
THESE AREN'T POLICY DEBATES TO ME.
THEY IMPACT MY CLIENTS.
MY NEIGHBORS. MY COMMUNITY.
NY-07 doesn't need another politician with a resumé without results and ideological talking points. We need someone who has been in the room when ICE comes for a neighbor, when landlords try to unlawfully evict tenants, and when families are denied even basic food assistance.
For the last two decades, I’ve fought these battles and won. I’ve shown up when people had nowhere else to turn. I’ve built systems here in New York and across the country that actually protect families and I know how to scale that work in Congress.
I'm asking for your support because this moment demands more than rhetoric. It demands bold vision and real relief from broken systems. NY-07 deserves a representative ready to meet the moment and deliver.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WHY I'M RUNNING
THE ISSUES
VICHAL'S CORE AGENDA IS ROOTED IN TWO DECADES OF FRONTLINE WORK
RESHAPING SYSTEMS THAT FAIL WORKING PEOPLE
DISMANTLE ICE.
WE ARE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS,
TERROR HAS NO PLACE IN OUR COMMUNITIES
ICE is a rogue agency acting outside the law without accountability, terrorizing our communities, and ripping families apart. ICE is symptomatic of a much broader systemic failure in our immigration policies. My work has shown me that our current immigration system is outdated, cruel, and inhumane. I fought this system and witnessed families being torn apart, communities devastated time and again, and Americans who have lived in NY for over 50 years be deported to countries they have never known. Witnessing these injustices and their human impact firsthand is what drives my work with individuals and service providers supporting noncitizens nationwide. ICE must be dismantled, the expansion of detention centers stopped, and the deportation machine halted. I will advocate for immigration policies that prioritize protecting families and communities, restoring due process, and upholding fundamental rights. These safeguards will protect those already in the U.S. and create permanent pathways for anyone seeking to fulfill their dreams here.
Work hard and the benefits will come. Never has this idea felt more out of reach. Worker exploitation fuels deeper instability, while corporate greed, shareholder appeasement, and lax regulations continue to punish working people. Deregulation strips away basic labor protections and promotes anti-organizing efforts aimed at unions. I have supported New Yorkers struggling to make ends meet helping them navigate employment challenges, cut through the licensing bureaucracy, and even write resumes. Everyone deserves to be paid a fair wage that reflects their contributions, beginning with a long overdue meaningful minimum wage for all workers. Employers need to be responsible for paying their full share, increasing contributions for fundamental benefits - health, retirement, pensions, child care, and leave. The National Labor Relations Board must be strengthened to make it easier to organize, foster unions, and protect workers from every sector: full-time, part-time, contract, gig, caregiving, and unpaid labor. New challenges to the working-class arise every day including the utilization of AI, the rapid onset of automation, and the misclassification of workers. Our economy must center policies that create portability - so benefits follow all workers, not employers or job classifications. An economic system must also guarantee workers the right to share in profits, regardless of their role, not just shareholders.
EMPOWER WORKERS.
WORKERS BUILD OUR SOCIETY AND DESERVE STABILITY, RESPECT, AND REAL POWER
GUARANTEE HEALTHCARE.
EVERYONE DESERVES UNIVERSAL, AFFORDABLE, AND ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE, WITHOUT BARRIERS
No one should have to fear getting sick, losing coverage, or going into debt to stay alive. Even when we are fortunate to have insurance, we are controlled by a corporate driven health care system that too often forces an impossible choice between care or financial ruin. Those without insurance face even greater hardship. Growing up in a household without health insurance, I understood the day-to-day tough decisions all too well. We asked ourselves: Are we sick enough? Is there some other home remedy? Maybe rest will fix it? Healthcare is a fundamental right, and the richest country in the world can and must deliver Medicare for All. I will advance immediate reforms that bring us closer to this vision. Expand government subsidized health coverage through the ACA for the uninsured, making prescription drugs affordable without outrageous out-of-pocket costs, and guaranteeing expanded coverage for everyone by eliminating preexisting condition exclusions.
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