Monica De La Cruz was born in Brownsville, Texas in 1974. She earned her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1997. Before her election to Congress, she worked in entertainment media with Turner Entertainment and Cartoon Network Latin America, and later opened her own insurance agency in the Rio Grande Valley, becoming the first new female agent in the region to earn the President's Club award. De La Cruz first ran for Congress in 2020 and lost by three points to incumbent Democrat Vicente González. She was endorsed by Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy, and ran again in 2022 after González was redistricted. She defeated Democrat Michelle Vallejo with 54% of the vote, becoming the first Republican ever elected to represent the district. She was re-elected in 2024 by 14 points against Michelle Vallejo, and ran unopposed in the 2026 Republican primary.
Monica De La Cruz was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, in a single-mother household. Her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. to flee political injustice in Mexico; her grandfather was a first-generation American who served in the U.S. Navy. She worked her way through the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she became a UTSA Ambassador and vice president of her business fraternity. After graduation, she studied Spanish at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, then worked for Turner Entertainment and Cartoon Network Latin America in Atlanta. She returned to South Texas and opened her own insurance agency, becoming the first new female agent in the Rio Grande Valley to earn the President's Club award (given to the top 50 agents nationally). She is a mother of two and lives in Edinburg. She is an Episcopalian.