Day 57: Xavier Becerra, First Latino Health Secretary

As Congress ushered in more change, President Biden ordered United States flags on federal property to fly at half staff until sunset next Monday in respect to the victims of the attack on Asian businesses Tuesday evening and in solemn reminder of the country’s significant immigration history.

In the Capitol, Representatives passed the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a pair of bills that offer pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and for agricultural workers, many of whom worked without interruption throughout the pandemic, respectively.

The Senate, also at work today, confirmed Xavier Becerra the first Mexican-American Secretary of Health and Human Services for an immigration story that’s close to home.

Becerra the son of a U.S. citizen who was raised in Tijuana and a mother who was born and raised in Guadalajara, served in Congress (D-CA) from 1993 to 2017 when he took now Vice President Kamala Harris’s seat as the Attorney General of California.

Several cited Becerra’s lack of medical experience as a point of contention, while others highlighted his insider knowledge of health care policy from his previous two positions including helping to write and pass the Affordable Care Act.

“Xavier Becerra has decades of health care policy experience, worked with Republicans and Democrats to expand access to Covid treatments and take on opioid manufactures while leading the largest state department of justice in the country, and has a strong record of fighting to lower costs for patients,” Biden’s Director of Rapid Response, Andrew Bates said via statement.

Becerra’s focus shall include the pandemic as well as initiatives like Healthy Borders that provides binational coordination for maternal and child health, infectious diseases, mental health and addiction and injury prevention.

“We may not always agree but… I will always listen to you, I will keep an open mind, I will look for common cause and I will work with you to improve the health and dignity of the American people,” he said during his hearing.