Rep. Pramila Jayapal Pramila JayapalDHS opens probe into allegations at Georgia ICE facility Progressive Caucus co-chair: Whistleblower complaint raises questions about 'entire detention system' Buttigieg, former officials added to Biden's transition team MORE (D-Wash.) this week shared her response to a caller who questioned her citizenship status.

The congresswoman shared via Twitter a video of her Thursday appearance on C-SPAN where she was asked by a caller if she was a U.S. citizen.

“Yes, absolutely,” Jayapal said. “You have to be a U.S. citizen to be in Congress so I am a proud U.S. citizen."

ADVERTISEMENT

Jayapal used the question about her citizenship to make an appeal for comprehensive immigration reform.

“Most of our immigration laws ... have not been adjusted for decades,” Jayapal said. “It keeps getting tossed back and forth because it is complicated.”

“We haven’t had any kind of a system that matches our economic needs for labor to our immigration system,” she added.

The congresswoman’s remarks come while President Trump continues to make a case for stronger immigration laws and a border wall.

Jayapal, who was born in India, noted that she was naturalized in 2000 and has been living in the U.S. since she was 16 years old.

The congresswoman said she came to the U.S. by herself with a student visa, “was on a whole host of visas and married a U.S. citizen after 17 years."

“Everyone’s best interests are served when we stop making immigration a political issue and just recognize that immigration has always served our country,” Jayapal said. “What we need is a set of updated laws that actually responded to the needs of all our country and all of our communities.”