When Brazilian-born Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet came to the United States in 2001 at age 14 his life changed forever. Sousa-Lazaballet was undocumented and experienced many challenges due to his immigration status and queer identity.
Now, Sousa-Lazaballet is the sole Democratic candidate for Rep. Anna Eskamani’s seat (she is currently an Orlando mayoral candidate for the 2027 election). The only Republican in this race is a woman who organized to ban Pride flags in Winter Park, Florida.
Should Sousa-Lazaballet win this race, he will become the first former Dreamer, first Brazilian-American and first out LGBTQ+ immigrant to become a Florida state legislator. He maintains that his intersectional experiences lived at the margins of society will drive his legislative goals. He has what he said is a robust, all-inclusive policy platform under a “My Thriving Together Agenda” for all Floridians.
His campaign is inspired by undocumented, LGBTQ+ and working-class person Floridians “who were told their dreams didn’t belong here.” Sousa-Lazaballet added that he carries that responsibility with both “humility and fire.”
Sousa-Lazzaballet was an excellent student in high school but had difficulty accessing a college education because he was undocumented. After several years in school, he eventually earned a bachelor’s from St. Thomas University.
Challenges getting his degree inspired Sousa-Lazaballet to get into community activism, specifically when he became a Students Working for Equal Rights leader in 2007. He ultimately played a role in tuition-equity getting passed and signed into law; the legislation mandated that undocumented Floridians would pay in-state tuition to attend college.
The law Sousa-Lazaballet had worked so hard toward was repealed in 2025.
“I witnessed firsthand the power the Florida legislature has to change lives, and then, literally a decade later, I watched it allow cruelty and blind allegiance to President Trump and Gov. Desantis to roll back that progress,” said Sousa-Lazaballet.
He added, “The day I testified in committee against what I believe is the worst anti-immigrant legislation ever passed in Florida’s history, I decided to file the paperwork to run for House District 42 right after that hearing. I was angry at them for turning my mic off before I was done speaking and wanted to do something to defiantly fight back … and protect my community.”
Months before that hearing, Eskamani had already told Sousa-Lazaballet that his lived experience and perspective are what the present political moment demands, and encouraged him to run for her seat. He is currently the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka executive director. Sousa-Lazaballet also spent five years as Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s point person for all Pulse recovery efforts in the wake of the massacre that took the lives of 49 people in 2016.
He watched his community “refuse to be defined by hate,” show up for each other and rebuild together in the wake of the shooting. Sousa-Lazaballet said the experience taught him more than any classroom or budget spreadsheet would provide.
“Then I watched the same politicians who showed up for photo ops at Pulse turn around and sign Don’t Say Gay into law,” said Sousa-Lazaballet. “Book bans. Attacks on LGBTQ+ youth. A bill this past session seeking to ban local governments from participating in Pride. They even erased the rainbow crosswalk. But you cannot erase the 49. And you will not erase us. That is what this work is, and what I will bring as a Florida state legislator.”
When Sousa-Lazaballet got married to his husband, Luis Sousa-Lazaballet, in 2020 he already had a green card due to a family petition. He became a United States citizen in 2021.
“It was one of the most profound moments of my life to become a United States citizen” said Felipe. “I’d spent 15 years without the full protections of the country I call home, and finally, I was truly home.”
“Luis is my anchor and my greatest joy,” he added. “Our love story is, in many ways, a very Florida story—two people from different backgrounds brought together by a shared commitment to community and each other. During our wedding vows, Luis said something I will never forget. He told me that I’m water and he is cement, and that together we would create concrete strong enough to build a life on.”
Luis said, “Our journeys to this country were different, but the values that shaped us are remarkably similar: resilience, hope, sacrifice and a commitment to building something better for the people who come after us.”
One of Felipe’s most defining moments as an activist was when he helped spearhead the historic Trail of Dreams 1,500-mile four-month-long walk from Miami’s Freedom Tower to Washington, D.C. in 2010. Sousa-Lazaballet and three other undocumented students—Gaby Pacheco, Carlos Roa and Isabele Rodriguez—made the trip because, “We were done waiting for someone else to tell our stories … and were inspired by the sacrifices of the Civil Rights Movement, to reclaim our collective humanity.”
The walk reinvigorated the immigration movement nationally and “helped create the political and moral pressure that ultimately led President Obama to implement Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012,” Felipe said.
He and Luis were recently in Chicago with Pacheco and Roa to visit the newly opened Barack Obama Presidential Center where he was able to see the Trail of Dreams exhibit. Felipe said the exhibit was a “deeply moving experience … and it felt surreal to have that journey documented and preserved as a part of our nation’s story. It is something I could never have imagined.”
Additionally, Felipe’s Chicago friends Brad Luna, Victor Ravago and his husband Jin-Soo Huh hosted a campaign fundraiser for him while he was in the city. He said the most meaningful part of that event for him was “seeing so many different chapters of my life come together in one room.”
Felipe emphasized that what happens in Florida matters to all Americans. He called his state “ground zero in the fight for LGBTQ+-and immigrant-rights and democratic values. This Pride Month, I want to remind everyone that Pride was born from resistance and people who had the audacity to believe they deserved more.“
