The Peru-to-Congress story
Peru has produced 2 naturalized citizens who went on to serve in the US Congress — 2 in the House of Representatives and 0 in the Senate. 2 are currently serving, while 0 have completed their congressional careers. The first of them entered Congress in 2009, during the late twentieth century; the most recent arrived in 2023, during the modern Congress. Collectively they represented 2 different US states — a reminder that naturalized-citizen members of Congress come from every region of the country, not a single immigrant gateway.
Peru reserves the ballot for its own citizens: non-native-born residents cannot vote in any election there, no matter how long they have lived in the country. Specifically: Peru restricts national voting to citizens only. Non-citizen residents cannot vote at any level.
Every Peru-born member tracked here has served as Democrats. That produces a striking asymmetry with the United States, which not only naturalized this member but then elected them to help write federal law. A naturalized American who returned to Peru would have no such political voice there. Across the full history of the US Congress, Peru ranks 16th of 38 tracked birth countries, accounting for 2 naturalized-citizen lawmakers.
Put plainly: a person born in Peru can be entrusted by American voters with a seat in the US Congress, writing federal law for hundreds of millions of people. Yet the same person, if they returned to Peru, would be barred from casting even a single ballot there. That is the contrast this tracker exists to surface.