House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries meets with veterans in ...

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries visited Buena Park City Hall on Wednesday, March 11, joining local and regional leaders for a roundtable discussion on veteran affairs and pledging his support for a long-awaited veterans cemetery in Orange County.

The New York Democrat was joined at the meeting by Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), Rep. Derek Tran (D-Orange), Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton), and Buena Park Mayor Connor Traut.

During the session and a subsequent press conference, Jeffries highlighted the planned Gypsum Canyon project, which is set to become the Southern California State Veterans Cemetery. Despite being home to 84,000 veterans, Orange County remains the largest county in California without a veterans cemetery.

Jeffries promised to push the project across the finish line by coordinating with local, state, and federal officials, including members of the presidential administration. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently offered $10 million in federal funds to the California Department of Veterans Affairs to assist with construction efforts at the Gypsum Canyon site.

Sharing a personal connection, Jeffries recalled the burial of his father, Marland Jeffries, an Air Force veteran who passed away in 2023 at age 85 and was laid to rest at Dayton National Cemetery. Jeffries noted that the dignity shown to his family during that time reinforced the necessity of establishing proper resting places for former service members.

Quirk-Silva, a longtime advocate for the cemetery, stated that the project is approaching completion through collaborative advocacy across all levels of government.

The roundtable also addressed broader national concerns affecting military personnel. Jeffries described the current period as fragile for veterans, pointing to the ongoing conflict with Iran—which has resulted in the deaths of at least seven U.S. service members—alongside increased immigration enforcement impacting military families and mass job cutbacks at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Both Jeffries and Tran voiced strong criticism of the Trump administration's policies regarding federal workforce reductions and veteran services. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

Jeffries noted that traveling to Orange County—where local temperatures reached around 80 degrees while Washington, D.C., braced for potential snow on Thursday—offered valuable firsthand perspective from local service members to help shape federal legislation.