Congressman says both parties grandstand on border security

WASHINGTON —

Both Republicans and Democrats have used migrant surges along the U.s.-mexico border in an effort to score political points, according to U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-texas.

“I don’t have that luxury,” Gonzales said in an interview. “My district is at the epicenter of it. It’s on fire.”

Gonzales represents Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which covers about 40% of the U.s.mexican border and includes some of the areas most often featured in news accounts of migrants seeking to cross the border: Eagle Pass, Del

Rio, El Paso.

He tried in vain to participate in President

Joe Biden’s recent trip to the border and has expressed frustration that the administration isn’t working with members such as himself on potential bipartisan solutions.

Gonzales said his constituents fault the

Biden administration for much of what’s gone wrong at the border, but also tell him they want Congress to fix the problem rather than play the blame game.

Gonzales described himself as hawkish when it comes to border security.

“But you can also be warm and welcoming toward those who want to come and live the

American dream through the legal process,” he said.

That’s why he’s been an outspoken critic of the Border Safety and Security Act introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-texas, which Gonzales says has a catchy but ultimately misleading name.

Critics say Roy’s legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to turn away people seeking asylum unless it had the capacity to hold them for the duration of the process — and DHS would never have that capacity.

“This bill would essentially ban all asylum claims, to include legitimate asylum claims,” Gonzales said, citing an incident in which young girls were left in a field last year by the cartels. “If this bill was enacted into law, what do you do with those little girls? Do you throw them down the river? Do you throw them over the fence?”

Border security was a key element of the Republicans’ midterm message, and the party continues to criticize the Biden administration for not doing more to stem the flow of migrants.

Texas Republicans last year unveiled a border security plan focused on physical infrastructure and tougher enforcement. Gonzales was the only House Republican in the Texas delegation not to sign off on that framework.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-texas, called Roy the

“Thomas Jefferson” behind the delegation’s framework.

The framework includes requiring DHS to turn away “all individuals at the border that cannot be detained for the pendency of their proceedings, including by using programs consistent with Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).”

At the news conference unveiling the framework, Roy cited the migrants who died in an overheated trailer near San Antonio last year and children being sex trafficked by Mexican cartels.

“In what world is this somehow compassionate?” Roy said. “It’s not. This is destroying lives. It’s destroying American lives. It’s empowering cartels.”

Securing the border will involve not just physical barriers such as a wall but also changes in policies, he said.

“You cannot encounter and release. You must be able to detain and/or turn away in order to stop the flow that is devastating lives,” Roy said. “That’s how you actually secure a border, is to enforce those policies.”

The text of his bill, co-sponsored by a dozen other Texas Republicans, says the Homeland

Security secretary would have the ability to bar “the entry of covered aliens at an international land or maritime border of the United States” if that’s necessary to “achieve operational control over such border.”