Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Her maternal grandfather left the city of Kırklareli for Cuba in 1913, fleeing the devastation and economic collapse caused by the First Balkan War.

Her mother later converted to Catholicism to marry her father.

Ros-Lehtinen was an educator and the owner/operator of a private school in Miami-Dade County.

Ileana Ros y Adato was born in Havana, Cuba, one of two children born to Enrique Ros (1924–2013), who later became a businessman and anti–Fidel Castro activist, and his wife, Amanda Adato.

The family immigrated to the United States when Ileana was seven years old.

She received her Bachelor of Arts in education and her Master of Arts in educational leadership from Florida International University.

She attended the University of Miami where she earned an Ed.D in higher education.

Ros-Lehtinen was raised Catholic and is now an Episcopalian.

Ros-Lehtinen's maternal grandparents were Sephardic Jews, originally from the Ottoman Empire, who had been active in Cuba's Jewish community.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (born Ileana Carmen Ros y Adato, July 15, 1952) is a politician and lobbyist from Miami, Florida, who represented Florida's 27th congressional district from 1989 to 2019.

By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida.

She was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1982, where she met State Representative Dexter Lehtinen (D-Miami).

Upon her election, Ros-Lehtinen was incorrectly informed that she was also the first Latina elected to Congress, the first having been Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, who was of partial Mexican descent and was elected in 1982.

They married on June 9, 1984, after Dexter switched parties.

They both served in the State House until 1986.

That year, they were both elected to the Florida Senate, where he was elected to District 40 and she was elected in District 34.

In 1988, Dexter Lehtinen resigned his seat to become U.S. Attorney of South Florida.

In 1989, Ros-Lehtinen won a special election and became the first Cuban American elected to Congress.

She was also the first Republican woman elected to the House from Florida.

In 1989, Ros-Lehtinen resigned her seat to become a U.S. Representative.

After incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Claude Pepper died on May 30, 1989, there was a special election scheduled for August 29, 1989.

State Senator Ros-Lehtinen defeated Democrat Gerald Richman 53%–47%.

She was the first Cuban American elected to the United States Congress and the first Republican woman elected from Florida.

In 1990, she won re-election to a full term with 60% of the vote.

In total, she was elected to fourteen full terms, never winning with less than 58%.

Ros-Lehtinen joined Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) on a congressional delegation to the United Nations in order to encourage international support for an end to the genocide in Darfur.

In addition, when Ros-Lehtinen returned from a trip to Darfur in April 2007 where she visited Sudanese refugee camps, she strongly encouraged the United States and the international community to find a solution to this humanitarian crisis.

Following the 2008 elections, then President-elect Barack Obama rang Ros-Lehtinen to congratulate her on her re-election.

She hung up on him, believing that it was a prank call from a radio station.

She did the same to Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel when he rang to confirm the original call was genuine, and only accepted the call after Congressman Howard Berman managed to speak to her.

Ros-Lehtinen played a key role in keeping the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010 from being passed into law.

Although the bill had unanimously passed the Senate with bipartisan support, she persuaded enough Republicans in the House to vote against the bill so that it did not receive the required two-thirds majority.

She reportedly invoked concerns about the legislation's cost and that funds could be used to promote abortion.

She was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011–2013.

Ros-Lehtinen gave the first Republican response to the State of the Union address in Spanish in 2011, and gave the third in 2014.

In September 2011, Ros-Lehtinen became the first Republican member of the U.S. Congress to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Ros-Lehtinen was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011–2013.

During the 2011 Libyan civil war, she expressed support of the Libyan opposition; on February 26, 2011, she released a press release which stated, "stronger penalties must be imposed in order to hold the regime accountable for its heinous crimes, and to prevent further violence against the Libyan people".

In July 2012, Ros-Lehtinen became the first Republican in the House to support same-sex marriage.

On April 30, 2017, Ros-Lehtinen announced that she would not be running for re-election in 2018.