This article is a list of all Arab Americans and Middle Eastern Americans who have ever served in the United States Congress. This list includes North Africans in the United States who identify as Arabs as well as Middle Eastern Americans who are not Arabs.
The first Arab American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives was George A. Kasem in 1959, and the first Arab-American U.S. senator was James Abourezk in 1973. In the 115th Congress, there were six U.S. representatives and no U.S. senators of Arab-American descent serving in Congress.[1] [2] On November 6, 2018, four additional Arab Americans, all of whom are female, were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Ilhan Omar, Donna Shalala and Rashida Tlaib. Tlaib and Omar were also the first Muslim women in Congress.[3] The U.S. House of Representatives currently has five Arab-American members.
The first Assyrian American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives was Adam Benjamin in 1977,[4] and the first Iranian-American U.S. Representative was Stephanie Bice in 2021.[5] There currently are one Assyrian-American and one Iranian-American U.S. Representative serving in Congress.
| Picture | Senator | Arab or Middle Eastern ethnicity | Party | State | Term start | Term end | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lebanese | Democratic | South Dakota | Retired[6] | ||||||
| George J. Mitchell | Lebanese | Democratic | Maine | Retired[7] | |||||
| Lebanese | Republican | South Dakota | Lost reelection[8] | ||||||
| Lebanese | Republican | Michigan | Lost reelection[9] [10] | ||||||
| John E. Sununu | Palestinian, Lebanese | Republican | New Hampshire | Lost reelection[11] [12] |