Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet in Tallahassee Feb. 12, filing his paperwork to officially run for Florida House District 42. (Photo courtesy Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet)
ORLANDO | Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, an LGBTQ+ and immigrants rights activist, announced Feb. 14 he is running for the District 42 seat in the Florida House of Representatives.
Sousa-Lazaballet is currently executive director for Hope CommUnity Center, a nonprofit organization established in the early 1970s by three nuns to advocate and assist the immigrant community. Sousa-Lazaballet assumed the position in 2022 after serving as the Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Senior Specialist for the Office of Multicultural Affairs for the City of Orlando.
“I’m running because Floridians deserve leaders who focus on what truly matters — good jobs, lower grocery costs, strong public schools, affordable health care and a clean environment,” Sousa-Lazaballet said in a press release announcing his run for office. “Instead of fueling divisive culture wars, we need to bring people together, listen to our communities and solve the challenges working families face every day.”
Sousa-Lazaballet came to the U.S. from Brazil when he was 14 years old, losing his immigration status six months later. In 2006, he attended an immigrants rights march in Miami which kicked off his activism.
“I was an undocumented immigrant for about 15 years and in that time I was witness to and experienced a lot of injustices, both because I’m an immigrant and also because I’m part of the LGBTQ community,” Sousa-Lazaballet said in an interview with Watermark Out News in 2021.
Soon after attending the 2006 march, Sousa-Lazaballet founded several organizations including the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Students Working for Equal Rights. He also was a member of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country.
In 2010, Sousa-Lazaballet was one of four students who participated in the Trail of Dreams, a 1,500-mile walk from Miami to Washington, D.C. to promote human rights, stop the deportations of current undocumented students and to support the DREAM Act.
“Each town we walked through, we stopped and we would meet with the people of the town, those who supported us and who were against us,” Sousa-Lazaballet told Watermark Out News in 2021. “At one point we even had the KKK protest us in Georgia.”
As a Dreamer — a child brought to the U.S. without documentation — Sousa-Lazaballet has been a voice and advocate for the approximately 653,000 other Dreamers in the U.S. His work in the undocuqueer movement took him to California where he was involved in a developmental workshop with an organization that works on affordable housing in Los Angeles, returning to Florida in 2016 after the Pulse tragedy.
Since returning to Orlando, Sousa-Lazaballet has built his own “American Dream,” marrying his now husband, Luis, in 2020 and, in 2021, becoming a U.S. citizen. If elected, Sousa-Lazaballet would become the first Dreamer to be elected to the Florida House.
“I’ve spent my life fighting for working people, students, immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities and everyday Floridians — not by tearing others down but by lifting people up,” Sousa-Lazaballet said. “Now, I’m ready to fight for you in the Florida House.”
Sousa-Lazaballet is running for Florida Rep. Anna V. Eskamani’s current House seat. Eskamani, who has been a member of the Florida House since 2018, is ineligible to run again due to term limits. Eskamani announced in Decmeber that she would be running to become the next mayor of Orlando in 2027. The next election for Florida House District 42 will be in November 2026.
Learn more about Sousa-Lazaballet’s campaign at FelipeForFlorida.com.
