Democratic state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, running in the June 23 Democratic primary for New York’s 7th Congressional District, accepted thousands of dollars in campaign donations from AI investors and employees of companies contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the New York Post reported June 6, even as she publicly pledged to reject AI industry contributions and has called for abolishing the agency.
The 7th District covers parts of Queens and Brooklyn, a stretch of the city where federal immigration enforcement has faced scrutiny. Bushwick Daily has reported on a Bushwick man who remains detained after a federal judge said the ICE arrest allegations “appear to be egregious,” and on a separate incident in which ICE agents removed a handcuffed patient from a Bushwick emergency room.
According to the Post’s review of campaign finance records, Valdez accepted $7,000 in January from Tom Preston-Werner, a Silicon Valley-based billionaire AI investor and software developer, and his wife Theresa. The Post also identified at least $1,850 in additional donations from employees of AI companies. Valdez’s campaign had raised $751,680 through the end of March, per filings cited by the Post.
The Post report also found $3,250 from employees of ICE vendors, including $1,000 from a researcher at Magnet Forensics, which the Post says holds a $3 million federal contract to supply phone-hacking services to ICE’s investigations unit, and $250 from Kyle Cushing, a software developer at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which manufactures surveillance drones used in ICE border operations.
Valdez’s public statements contradict those donor relationships. “AI. Fossil fuels. Private utilities,” she posted on X on May 11. “The same oligarchs creating an affordability crisis are burning the planet. The solution must address both problems at once.” Her campaign website, as quoted by the Post, pledges to “end for-profit detention and deportation” by canceling federal contracts with “surveillance contractors and the ecosystem of businesses who profit off the misery of immigrant detention.”
Her spokesman, Andrew Epstein, disputed the framing Friday. “More than 20,000 people have given an average of 50 bucks to Claire’s campaign,” Epstein said. “That’s significantly more small dollar donors than both other candidates in this race combined – and it’s not even close. No real estate money. No corporate PACs. Just the occasional class traitor.”
An unnamed Democratic consultant quoted by the Post called Valdez “a complete hypocrite” for “bashing billionaires and Big Tech then turn[ing] around and pocket[ing] their campaign cash,” adding that she was “one more” politician who “say one thing and do another.” The Post did not name the consultant or disclose any affiliation with a candidate in the race.
The Post separately reported last month that Valdez’s father, Larry Valdez, works for Parkhill Smith & Cooper, an engineering firm that has handled border patrol construction projects in western Texas, including a $172,000 contract for a border facility build-out in Marfa in 2009. Valdez told the Post her father had no involvement in the specific projects it cited.
Valdez holds endorsements from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, whose seat Valdez is seeking, and the Working Families Party are backing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the same primary. The Democratic field for the June 23 primary is crowded.
Featured image: Marc A. Hermann / MTA / CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
