Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Jr. joined a group of Democrats on Wednesday calling on President Joe Biden and Congress to strengthen border security.
Gonzalez (D-TX) signed a letter, along with Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Jared Golden (D-ME), Mary Peltola (D-AK), and Don Davis (D-NC), stating that Congress should follow its taxpayer spending on Ukraine and Israel with a border package. The five Democrats voted in favor of a border package that failed to pass last weekend after the foreign aid spending package was approved in the House.
“Beyond defending our allies, we strongly agree with the National Border Patrol Council that Congress and the President must act and bring order to the Southern border,” the lawmakers wrote. “That is why we also voted for H.R. 3602 on Saturday and why we all voted last month for $19.6 billion for Border Patrol so that it could ramp up its efforts to secure the border.”
The letter called on Biden to reinstate two Trump-era border security policies, Title 42 and Remain in Mexico, which empowered border officials to turn away unlawful migrants.
“We are also calling today on President Biden to use the authority given the executive by Congress to immediately reimplement 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(C), and we are calling today on leaders in both the House and Senate to pass legislation to give Border Patrol back the expulsion authority that expired last year,” they wrote.
However, Gonzalez, who faces a tight reelection race against former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX), voted against a series of border security measures that passed with bipartisan support in recent months, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. The bills, if enacted, would have qualified drunk driving and Social Security fraud as deportable offenses for unlawful migrants.
Gonzalez also voted against the Secure the Border Act last year, which would have ended catch-and-release policies at the border, limited asylum eligibility, and hired more border agents. He also praised Biden for his handling of the border last July.
“When they lifted Title 42 and implemented Title 7, which I advocated against … I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong,” he said at the time, per the Rio Grande Guardian. “What the President did, what Secretary Mayorkas has done, has positively impacted our border, and that’s a fact.”
Gonzalez did not respond to a request for comment.
Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Gonzalez’s letter was a desperate attempt to flip-flop on unlawful migration in an appeal to voters.
“Talk is cheap, and this pathetic statement from Vicente Gonzalez isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” she said in a press release. “Gonzalez owns the open border, and he knows it — that’s why he’s pulling this election year stunt to paper over his long record against border security.”
