FORT WORTH — A raucous Nikki Haley event rocked the Fort Worth Stockyards Monday evening.
Haley, joined by Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, made her case to Texans at Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall on the eve of the Texas Republican Primary, part of the major primary election series known as Super Tuesday.
The event was interrupted dozens of times by scores of protesters who had embedded themselves in the crowd. At times, the hecklers scuffled with police and others in the audience as they were being ejected. They mostly chanted “Free Palestine” and other anti-Israel slogans associated with the current Middle Eastern conflict.
“You all should be ashamed of yourself,” one protester shouted as he was dragged from the venue by policemen.
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Haley took an unusual step for a Republican in the 2024 election cycle by using her platform to support the recent Lankford-Schumer border bill.
Haley signaled her support for more legal immigration through an expansion of asylum programs.
“With our border bill, what was good was that it strengthened our asylum laws. We need to strengthen asylum laws because 3 million illegal immigrants came in during the Trump administration because our asylum laws weren’t strong enough,” the former Trump administration UN ambassador said.
“The weak part about the bill was that it did not have ‘Remain in Mexico.’ We have to have ‘Remain in Mexico,” Haley said, referring to the Trump-era policy that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court date.
“It had a 5,000-person threshold; we don’t even want a one-person threshold,” Haley continued. The threshold she referred to concerned the total number of recorded daily unlawful migrant entries the proposed law would have allowed before other legal mechanisms were triggered.
“[Congress] should have given us something that they could pass,” Haley said, garnering a mixed response from the audience.
The Lankford-Schumer immigration bill has been criticized by many elected officials in Texas, including Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Both senators voted against the bill before visiting Eagle Pass, the location of the contentious showdown between the governor and the president over control of the Southern Border.
Haley covered nearly two dozen issues in her stump speech that lasted around 45 minutes. She highlighted everything from tax cuts to deregulation as goals of her administration.
Attendees interviewed by The Dallas Express were mostly non-committal in their support for the former South Carolina governor, and their reasons for attending varied wildly.
“I wanted to hear an alternative point of view, to feel like I have a choice. And she is not too old,” said Sarah, a registered Democrat who said she had already voted in the Democrat primary.
“Same,” said Jenny, a friend of Sarah’s who identified herself as “mostly Republican.”
“I was just curious. We’ve got a decision to make,” said Sydney, a registered Republican, who told The Dallas Express she was “not leaning toward any particular candidate.”
One attendee, John, said he began to lean toward Haley only recently. “My son and I went to her previous event in Dallas on February 15th. I like her evolution since then; she has become bolder in attacking the other candidates head-on,” he said before noting that he wanted a president who would put more troops on the border.
The only primary Haley has won thus far was in Washington, D.C., on March 3, where she swept up all 19 delegates at stake and earned the distinction of being the first woman to win a Republican primary in U.S. history. All other Republican state primaries and caucuses during this election cycle were won by former President Donald Trump.
The presidential primary elections in Texas and 15 other states are underway Tuesday, March 5.