■ Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto participated in a White Housing meeting with Joe Biden.
Nevadan participates in meeting with Biden
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday to discuss pressing issues that included immigration and components of the recently enacted coronavirus package.
At the outset of the meeting, Biden said America cannot succeed “unless Hispanic families succeed.”
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico headed the delegation of about 10 Democratic lawmakers with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Cortez Masto said some of the discussion focused on the impact of the pandemic on Latino communities and ways to help get vaccines and health care to communities that have been underserved.
She asked Biden and Harris to create an interagency task force with the jobs bill before Congress to make sure funds flow to small Hispanic entrepreneurs and minority small-business owners can bid on federal contracts.
“Many of our Latinos are entrepreneurs and they’re small-business owners, and they can’t access capital or credit, and they have trouble getting contracts at the federal level,” Cortez Masto told Nevada reporters after the meeting.
Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected to the U.S. Senate, also said she spoke to the president about the importance of the child tax credit to Latino families and the importance of investment in minority serving colleges and universities.
Cortez Masto is one of a group of bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate trying to find consensus to pass an immigration bill. She remained optimistic that could happen in this Congress.
“We can have a strong border and still have an immigration system that treats people with dignity,” Cortez Masto said.