Smart: Rep. Gonzales hosts a delegation of GOP candidates running in battleground districts at the border

Tony Gonzales for Congress

Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican, represents Texas’s 23rd congressional district in the House. His district includes El Paso. He is bringing a delegation of Republican candidates running in battleground districts to El Paso this week. The purpose of their trip is to take a tour of the border and see the effects of Biden’s border crisis first-hand. They will also talk to law enforcement officials about immigration and border security.

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On Friday, the delegation led by Gonzales will participate in a ride-along at the border. They will also receive a briefing by Border Patrol agents on the technology being used along the border. The candidates can meet with local residents and discuss the Biden economic downturn and the additional financial burdens that illegal migrants place on border communities.

The delegation includes an Air Force veteran running for Congress in Nevada, a battleground state, and two house candidates from New York. The inclusion of candidates from New York is clever. The decision by Governor Abbott to bus illegal migrants from the overcrowded and overwhelmed Texas border with Mexico to New York City has Democrat officials in that city angered, even though Mayor Adams said that NYC is a sanctuary city. However, the Biden administration and DHS has been flying illegal migrants from the border to the state of New York since 2020. Where’s the outrage from Democrats over that?

But long before Abbott started busing migrants to the Empire State, the Biden administration was flying them free of charge to the Westchester and Stewart airports there, according to Colin Schmitt, candidate for New York’s 18th Congressional District. The flights began in 2020, were suspended, and resumed last April coming from border cities like El Paso, according to the New York Post. The migrants being flown there include minors and adults appearing to be in their 20s, the Post reported.

“The Hudson Valley’s representatives in Congress turned a blind eye to the Biden administration’s policy of transporting people who illegally crossed the southern border to the Hudson Valley,” Schmitt alleges on his campaign website, vowing to “put an end to Joe Biden’s open border policies.”

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Another candidate from New York, Anthony D’Esposito, is former New York City police detective. He supports legal immigration but also law and order. D’Esposito wants to stop Democrats from giving amnesty to illegal migrants. According to his website, he also wants to secure the border to stop drugs, gangs and human trafficking from “invading our communities.”

The Republican candidate in Nevada, Sam Peters, is running against Rep. Steven Horsford, the Democrat who currently holds the seat. He supports legal immigration and has an 11-point plan to confront immigration reform. His plan includes finishing the border wall, making employment eligibility verification mandatory, and increasing penalties on businesses that hire illegal migrants.

“Legal immigration is welcome. Illegal immigration is not,” Peters says on his website. “The activity at the southern border is a national emergency and a crisis that must be faced, not ignored. It is time to return to policy that keeps illegal immigrants outside of our country…”

The delegation is coming at a time when all field operations by Border Patrol agents within the Del Rio Sector were suspended Sunday due to overcrowding at processing facilities. Let that sink in. The facilities are so overcrowded that there is nowhere to send the migrants when the Border Patrol processes them upon apprehension. According to a story published by Breitbart Texas, the Border Patrol was told not to patrol the border and the migrants are being released into the United States.

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The CBP source, not authorized to speak to the media, told Breitbart Texas all agents received a radio broadcast early on Sunday removing them from the field. Management advised the agents to report to their respective stations to address the more than 2,500 migrant detainees awaiting processing and, in many cases, release them into the United States.

At a local non-government shelter in Eagle Pass, multiple busloads of processed migrants were released by the Border Patrol throughout the morning. Each bus carried approximately 50 migrants. The migrants lined up outside the shelter as employees performed intake duties. The migrants will travel to their final destination in the United States once the shelter staff coordinates transportation arrangements.

The source says until the facility overcrowding issue is resolved, the agency will only respond to emergency distress calls involving migrants and to receive migrants that surrender to state and local law enforcement authorities.

Eagle Pass, which is part of the Del Rio Sector, has seen a massive increase in migrant apprehensions in recent months. The city now leads the nation as the border city with the highest migrant crossings nationwide.

This is insanity. There are so many migrants coming and claiming asylum, though very few are actually eligible for asylum under current laws, that they look for Border Patrol agents to turn themselves in and there is no one there. Law enforcement along the border cannot keep up with the consistent flood of migrants crossing the border outside of legal ports of entry. Border communities do not have the resources to house and feed them while they await processing.

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It’s a good idea for candidates in battleground districts trying to flip a seat from Democrat to Republican to be able to speak to Biden’s border crisis from first-hand knowledge. Biden has turned every state into a border state. Democrats enjoy virtue-signaling and calling their cities sanctuary cities until the need arises for them to care for illegal migrants. NYC received five buses of illegal migrants this morning from Texas. They are being welcomed by city officials and provided with hotel rooms, food, and cell phones. Mayor Adams may as well get used to it. Abbott isn’t going to stop trying to relieve Texans of an unfair burden.

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