ALLENTOWN, Pa. — First lady Jill Biden visited Lehigh Carbon Community College's Center City campus Tuesday afternoon to promote President Joe Biden's efforts to build economic opportunities through education.
Biden sat down with U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, and U.S. Reps. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., and Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for a roundtable discussion of job creation and education in the Lehigh Valley.
In Allentown, a city that's 52% Hispanic according to the 2020 Census, a major factor is building pathways to the middle class for the community's burgeoning Latino community, the panel said.
The Biden administration has focused on investing in educational programs that can better prepare children to succeed at school and to link graduates to in-demand jobs, Biden said.
The president's proposed 2025 budget includes funding for a program that would limit child care costs for middle-class Americans to $10 a day and would expand free preschool. The goal is to provide children a head start on their educations while freeing up their parents to be part of the workforce full-time, she said.
"That's how we grow the middle class, and... that's how we grow Latino economic power, too," said Biden, an educator who works as a community college professor in northern Virginia.
"That's how we grow the middle class, and... that's how we grow Latino economic power, too."First lady Jill Biden
The caucus heard from officials with LCCC and St. Luke's University Health Network, two institutions that have started job training initiatives specifically targeting Allentown. Victoria Montero, a director of workforce development at St. Luke's, job training programs for youths isn't just good for the local economy. Poverty is a major barrier to healthcare access in the region, she said, so the healthcare network has partnered with school districts to create programs that help students prepare for careers.
Heidee Rosado started in one of those programs at age 16. She had moved to Pennsylvania from Puerto Rico at age 9 and struggled at first with her English. However, the program connected her with mentors that started her down her career path, she said. After earning a Pell Grant, she attended two years of community college before graduating from Cedar Crest College in 2015. Next year, she plans on attending the psychiatric nurse practitioner program at DeSales University, she said.
"It was eye-opening for me," Rosado said of her training program at St. Luke's. "By the age of 17, I realized I wanted to become a nurse."
No talk of debate
At no point did Jill Biden or any of the congresswomen address mounting questions about President Biden's fitness for office following his poor performance at last week's presidential debate. As guests gathered at the LCCC building, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first federally elected Democrat to call on Joe Biden to drop out of the race.
The first lady left Allentown without taking questions from reporters, and Wild made clear afterward that she only intended to answer policy questions.
"I'm not here to talk politics today," Wild told reporters at the Allentown Arts Park.
But Republicans weren't as eager to turn the page on the CNN primetime event. Both the National Republican Congressional Committee and Wild's challenger in the November election, state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh, took aim at Wild, questioning if she should be trusted after vouching for Biden's mental aptitude in the past.
“Last week, Susan Wild was exposed for her multiple lies about President Biden’s capacity to serve,” Mackenzie said in a release. “Today, she’s bringing in Jill Biden to the Lehigh Valley in an effort to improve their damaged image.
The stop at LCCC was the first lady's third visit to the Lehigh Valley in recent years and was just blocks away from The Learning Hub, an early childhood education center Biden visited in 2021 with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Like this trip, the goal was to connect with Latino voters in the fast-growing minority-majority city.
While Wild and the White House emphasized Tuesday's visit was not a campaign event, the Biden campaign has made no secret of its attempts to court the Latino vote in the Lehigh Valley ahead of the 2024 election.
Becerra returned to the city in March to tour the St. Luke's University Health Network's Sacred Heart campus and spent his lunch break meeting with local Latinos build relationships for Biden's re-election effort.
