Damjan DeNoble

Damjan DeNoble's career experience includes working as an attorney at law.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Damjan DeNoble is a former immigration defense lawyer and small business owner running for Congress because he believes the Democratic Party has stopped taking responsibility for governing. For more than a decade, DeNoble represented immigrants, workers, and families navigating a federal system defined by delay, cruelty, and political cowardice. He watched as Democratic leaders campaigned on reform, won power, and then failed to deliver even the most basic fixes, leaving millions in legal limbo while fundraising emails replaced legislation.

DeNoble built and led legal and nonprofit organizations focused on due process and access to justice, including work responding to mass detention and deportation crises. Over time, he became convinced that the problem was not a lack of good policy ideas, but a political culture inside the Democratic Party that rewards caution, seniority, and inertia over results.

He is running for Congress to challenge that culture directly. DeNoble argues that Democrats cannot credibly defend democracy while tolerating a system where incumbents go decades without contested primaries and Congress functions more as a messaging platform than a lawmaking body. His campaign focuses on restoring accountability, rebuilding Congress as a deliberative institution, and advancing policies that materially improve people’s lives, including immigration reform that actually gets passed.

DeNoble lives in Connecticut with his wife and three children.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

I’m doing this because for people our age, politics has quietly stopped working and everyone in charge seems fine with that.

If you’re under forty, you got student debt, rent that eats half your paycheck, jobs that never feel secure, and a political system that keeps telling you to wait your turn. The problem is, your turn never comes.

I spent years as an immigration defense lawyer watching people do everything right and still get stuck, while Democratic leaders campaigned on fixing the system and then did nothing. That’s when I realized this isn’t just about immigration. It’s about a party that’s learned to manage decline instead of fighting for a future.

Young people don’t lack ideas or energy. We lack access and power. Let’s get it.The second thing I want to say is this: we need to start building big again.

Somewhere along the line, Democrats stopped believing we’re allowed to solve big problems. Everything became a pilot program, a tax credit, a study, a workaround. That’s not leadership. That’s fear dressed up as realism.

Young people know the difference. We know housing won’t get fixed with slogans. We know healthcare won’t get fixed with half-measures. We know immigration, climate, and work won’t fix themselves while Congress argues over messaging.

Building big means doing what earlier generations did: naming the problem, passing laws that actually change material conditions, and accepting that progress requires risk.

I’m not here to manage decline.The third message is this: Democrats have to stop being the baddies.

Since 2001, we’ve built a massive surveillance and enforcement state that treats immigrants, activists, and whole communities as threats to be managed instead of people to be represented. ICE is a product of that era, and it should be abolished. Not rebranded. Not reformed around the edges. Ended.

You can’t claim to defend freedom while running detention centers, mass surveillance, and deportation systems that mirror the worst instincts of the national security state. And you can’t claim moral leadership abroad while enabling atrocities with blank checks and silence.

Young people see this clearly. They don’t want a party that explains why cruelty is unavoidable.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Immigration, civil infrastructure build out, healthcare policy, US-China relations