Joe Biden appointed a former congressman born in Ecuador as special counsel to the Summit of the Americas

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, appointed his two special advisers to the Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles. Former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, with whom Biden worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than 28 years, and former Ecuadorian American Congressman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell will be her special advisers for the June 6-10 summit.

Debbie Jessika Mucarsel-Powell, born in Guayaquil on January 18, 1971, was the first Ecuadorian-American to serve as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Congress. Mucarsel-Powell is a college politician and administrator who represented Florida's 26th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021 by the Democratic Party.

Mucarsel-Powell and Dodd are confident that President Biden will reaffirm and uphold the principles of collaboration and respect among the countries of the hemisphere during this time of constant change and regional uncertainty, according to Jen Psaki, White House press secretary.

The Summit of the Americas is a conference of heads of state and government of the countries of the Americas that has been held since 1994 to discuss common issues of foreign policy and international trade at the hemispheric level. Initially, these conferences proposed the treatment and implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which was unsuccessfully exhausted during the IV Summit of the Americas held in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, between November 4 and 5, 2005.

In June of this year, Los Angeles, a city with a strong cultural, demographic and historical connection to Latin America and home to many prosperous migrant communities, will host the 9th Summit of the Americas, where Western American leaders will discuss agreements to build a sustainable environment in the future.

This time the Summit aims to encourage governments, civil society and the regional private sector to work collectively to strengthen democracy, build prosperous economies, and efficiently and effectively protect people's human rights, health, dignity and security, Psaki said.

In the 1960s, before joining Congress, Dodd was with President John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps, and Mucarsel-Powell is recognized for supporting Venezuelan refugees who leave their country, asking for temporary security status, immigration protection, and permission to work for them.

From 2003 to 2007, Mucarsel-Powell was head of development at Florida International University (FIU) and from 2007 to 2011 she served first as associate vice president and then associate dean of the FIU School of Medicine. Before practicing electoral politics, she volunteered for the presidential campaign of John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008. In 2016, she unsuccessfully competed against Republican Anitere Flores for District 23 for a seat in the Florida State Senate.

In the 2018 Democratic Party primary, veteran Demetry Grimes won 64% of the vote. In the 2018 Florida Congressional elections for District 26, he surpassed Republican Carlos Curbelo with 120,000 votes and 51% of preferences. In the 2020 elections, she was overtaken by the Republican Carlos Giménez who defeated Mucarsel-Powell with 52% of the vote.

Ecuadorian American politician attended Pomona High School in California. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Pitzer College and a master's degree in international political economy from Claremont University.

In 1995, when the politician was 24 years old, Debbie's father was killed by a gunman on the doorstep of his home in Guayaquil.

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