State Assembly Member - District 39
Catalina Cruz
Has represented Assembly District 39 (Corona, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and parts of Rego Park and Middle Village) since January 2019.
Where they stand
Small businesses and street vending
Wants more street-vending licenses and safe working conditions for street vendors, one of the commitments to immigrant families on her campaign platform.
Issues Catalina is raising
Immigrant New Yorkers and state law
Wants more funding for legal services, English classes, migrant crisis response and mental health services for immigrant New Yorkers, and 3-K and after-school access regardless of immigration status. Prime sponsor of bills on public benefits regardless of status and a right to counsel in immigration court.
Workers' pay, benefits and safety
Supports protecting workers' right to organize, combating wage theft by holding employers accountable, and stricter workplace health and safety requirements. Sponsored the Construction Reporting Pay Act, now law, and a bill on injured workers' benefits that passed both houses in 2026.
Tenants, housing supply and homebuying
Supports stronger tenant protections against unjust evictions, support for small landlords, and more housing built through programs and construction that do not displace existing families and include union labor. Sponsored a 2026 law prohibiting unfair residential real estate service agreements.
Criminal justice and public safety
Wants to end qualified immunity and to increase penalties for workplace discrimination and hate crimes. Sponsored the 2023 law providing for automatic sealing of certain criminal convictions and a law signed in 2024 on the offenses of rape in the first, second and third degrees.
Health care, end-of-life and reproductive care
Wants state funding so anyone, regardless of income or immigration status, can get birth control, abortion or other reproductive health care. Co-sponsored and voted for the Medical Aid in Dying Act, now law, and sponsored a law requiring hospitals to set up violence prevention programs.
Background
Based in Jackson Heights, Queens
Born in Colombia, she moved to Queens at age 9 and lived in the United States for more than 10 years as an undocumented immigrant; a lawyer, she practiced housing law and directed the Governor's Exploited Workers Task Force.
- Assembly Member for District 39 since Jan. 1, 2019; first elected in 2018
- Member of the Assembly committees on Codes, Ethics and Guidance, Health, Insurance, Labor, Rules, and Ways and Means
- Member of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus, the Legislative Women's Caucus, the Task Force on New Americans, the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force and the Task Force on Women's Issues
- Former Director of the Governor's Exploited Workers Task Force
- Former Chief of Staff to Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland and Counsel to the City Council's Committee on Immigration
- Lawyer admitted to practice in New York; previously practiced housing law
- B.A., John Jay College of Criminal Justice; J.D., City University of New York School of Law
- Won the June 23, 2026 Democratic primary with 90.9% of the vote over Yonel Letellier Sosa; advanced on the Working Families Party line after that party's June 23 primary was canceled
- Re-elected in 2024 with 97.4% of the vote, in 2022 on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines with 98.0%, and in 2020 with 99.2%; first won on Nov. 6, 2018 with 87.6% over Ari Espinal and Bobby K. Kalotee
- Keeps an Assembly district office at 41-40 Junction Boulevard in Corona
Support
New York Working Families Party
Also on your ballot on the Working Families Party line
Money
$282K
raised
Top donors: American Property Casualty Insurance Ass, New York State Laborers PAC, Transport Workers Union Local 100
Others running for State Assembly Member - District 39
