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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (born 15 July 1952) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-FL 18) from 29 August 1989 to 3 January 2013, succeeding Claude Pepper and preceding Patrick Murphy, and from FL 27 from 3 January 2013 to 3 January 2019, preceding Donna Shalala. She was the first Cuban-American elected to the US Congress.

Biography[]

Ileana Carmen Ros y Adato was born in Havana, Cuba on 15 July 1952, the daughter of anti-communist businessman Enrique Ros and a mother of Sephardic-Jewish descent. Her family came to the United States in 1959 in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, and she became a private school owner and operator in Miami-Dade County, as well as the wife of District Attorney Dexter Lehtinen S. Ros-Lehtinen was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1982 and to the US House of Representatives in 1989 as a Republican Party politician, becoming the first Cuban-American and first Latina congresswoman. She opposed military intervention in Libya, supported the US-Israeli alliance, opposed funding the Peace Corps, supported sanctions against Venezuela, supported tax cuts, supported oil drilling, and supported continued sanctions against Cuba. She retired in 2018.

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