The Texan Podcast - 88th Session Kickoff: Border Security and Immigration Policy Panel

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

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Howdy, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here. Welcome to a special edition of the Texans podcast, where we play back a panel discussion with lawmakers that we hosted at our 88th session kickoff event on January 24th. This panel was on border and immigration policies. Our senior reporter, Hayden Sparks, moderated the discussion between State Senator Pete Flores and State Reps Terry Canales and Eddie Morales, Jr. We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation, and be sure to subscribe at thetexan.news to always be the first to have an insider's look at Texas politics and policymaking. Welcome back, everyone, to our Border Security and Immigration Policy panel.

I appreciate each and every one of you for being here. And today we have the privilege of being with State Representative Terry Canales, a Democrat who represents Edinburgh, Senator Pete Flores, a Republican from Pleasanton, and State Representative Eddie Morales, a Democrat from Eagle Pass. As a friendly reminder to our audience, and State Representative Eddie Morales, a Democrat from Eagle Pass. As a friendly reminder to our audience, we do appreciate you, a special thanks to our sponsors today. We kindly ask that you show these gentlemen respect during this panel and hold any applause until the end.

With that, let's begin. Again, I want to begin by asking each of you about your philosophy and your value system when it comes to the issue of immigration. So I pose this question to each of you. When in conflict, which should take precedence? Compassion for those immigrating or migrating to Texas or concerns about the public safety risks associated with illegal immigration? And once more, that question is, when in conflict, which should take precedence, compassion for those immigrating or migrating to Texas, or public safety risks associated with illegal immigration? And Representative Canales, we'll start with you. So respectfully, I think that's a loaded question because I don't think that they're mutually exclusive.

I think that you can do both at the same time. I think that you can prioritize public safety, which is number one, because that is also compassion for the citizens that you represent and the citizens that we represent. Public safety is a form of compassion towards the people and making sure that their families are safe and our families are safe. And that is a real concern when it comes to illegal immigration. But I also think that we can treat people that are looking for a better life

with compassion as well. They are also human beings. So I think that in the realm of politics and policy, it's not black and white. And I think that there are shades of gray. And I think that we have to prioritize safety. And we also need to be compassionate when we do it at the same time. Senator Flores? Well, thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to be here with my friends and colleagues. Good to see you guys. These are good men. We've worked together in the past and I look forward to working with them in the future. So I would have to agree with Representative Canales that that was a pretty loaded question. So if you want to go in the scope of my experience of having grown up on the border and seeing things through my long life. I grew up in Laredo, Texas, South Texan. And so in my career path, I'm a peace officer enforcing the rule of law and keeping, I've dedicated my adult life to keeping the peace and maintaining the rule of law.

And so I would agree that, you know, it's maintaining the rule of law and is something that does lead to quality of life and is a compassionate position. We also need to remember that there's a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. My wife had a green card when we were dating. She got her citizenship when she turned 18, and there's a right way to do it. My great-grandfather came from Bustamante, Nuevo León, after the revolution, did it the right way, emigrated. I've seen his paperwork on Ancestry.com.

So it's a hit or a miss. We all check those things out, you know. So great-grandfather bonafide did it the right way as well as a number of others at the same time when you talk about compassion uh you know there's i get our first our responsibility is to take care of our our nation to take care of our communities and the place that we live and call home but we did well we can't forget those little girls and little children that are left on the banks of the Rio Grande. And are we going to treat them like animals?

Or are we going to be judged by God to be the country that we are that's based on how we treat the most defenseless people? And that's what our country of E Pluribus Unum out of many one stands for our republic. But we still have to maintain the rule of law while maintaining the highest standards of civilization in God's green earth. Representative Morales. Yeah, thank you, Hayden. I agree 100% with my colleagues.

I think the next step, rather than reiterating their comments, is are we addressing law enforcement and public safety colleagues, I think the next step, rather than reiterating, you know, what their comments, is are we addressing law enforcement and public safety on our border the way that we would considering the comments that were just expressed? We've dropped over two billion dollars, you know, in just one bill alone that I was the joint author on, and I think now, after a year, we can safely say that, yes, it's helped and aided it, but it really is a $2 billion band-aid that we haven't addressed the main focus and the core issue. And we can never get to compassion if we don't address that. The way we are currently doing it through the river, it's not compassionate for those folks that are coming across.

It's not compassionate to our law enforcement that are risking their lives daily and there's no compassion also whenever you take into account the issues that they face once they cross. And that's why I've advocated for a number of measures that would incorporate the compassion aspect also of it. I didn't frame it in that sense. I understand who my audience is. We know that we need Republicans to join our efforts in trying to address this. You know on the House floor how we need the votes, and we don't have it as Democrats in order to pass any sort of legislation. So understanding who our audience is is imperative for us to be able to move that needle forward. And if we start incentivizing and continue to incentivize

cartels and human smugglers from doing it through the river and we immediately give papers to those migrants that cross then we're doing it wrong We should do land ports and invest I've sent the letter to the governor asking him to invest on our land ports So we can have the infrastructure in place for them to be able to do it We had 1,600 crossings weekly I'm sorry. I'm sorry daily in the Eagle Pass Del Rio region for a time, for a period. And it's still up there. I did the numbers and we were basically generating, if we charged $2,000 per application, the state of Texas would generate $3.2 million a day in revenue and over a billion dollars annual in revenue, just in the Del Rio Eagle

Pass sector alone. We can turn this, think outside the box, and do different things to make sure that we are actually doing it in a compassionate way, that we're actually taking into account public safety, that we're understanding our constituents and our citizens' concerns also, and taking them into account,

and that there's this level of fairness and equality. Because right now, for example, these folks in Mexico that have done everything that the senator just mentioned, how his wife was able to get a green card, it's not fair and there's no equality when those folks go through the application process and have to wait three, five, seven years and they still haven't heard from them, but they know that these migrants cross through the river and they get their papers immediately. And I think that needs to be addressed. Representative Morales, you touched on this in your answer, and that was the number of illegal crossings. And as we know, in fiscal year 2022, there were 2.4 million enforcement encounters by federal border guards. And I think it's clear that

each of you believe that those two concerns can coexist equally. But are there times when it can be in conflict in terms of the priority that deterrence is given in a policy decision? And what role should deterrence take in this conversation? Senator Flores. Well, thank you. First of all, when you're in my humble opinion, when you're involved in the business of enforcing the law, you enforce the law against those that intentionally and knowingly or recklessly engage in that behavior and deal with them appropriately. And so the reason I'm saying that is because, make no mistake, we need to use every resource that we have to go after those organizations and those individuals and those criminals that are engaged in human trafficking

and profiting from the misery of others. At the same time, we must insist that our federal government meet its constitutional requirement to protect our borders. And so while we have our ability to assign resources and manpower and money towards the end of preserving our rule of law, we need to continue to do everything that we can to address those criminals engaged in this behavior that are taking advantage of this law and upholding federal law, and we enforce our Texas state law with everything that we have.

You know, I remember when the first flood came through in Del Rio and Eagle Pass in 19, and they were coming in from 97 different nations there. I saw it firsthand, and our communities were suffering. They expect our communities, it doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican, those communities expect us to provide the resources to enforce the law and have safe communities. And at the same time, those that are being preyed upon by these criminal organizations, the children who are not there intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, but are there through no fault of their own, especially the very minor children, that's where we have to do the

compassionate part. But yet, we must uphold the rule of law. We spend up to $44 billion, and I'm in full support of that myself, and will continue to do that. I intend to pursue legislation that I've served, that my colleagues here have worked on in their legal capacity to create a RICO, a Texas RICO Act, racketeering influence of corrupt organizations at a Texas state level and go after these criminal organizations and organize crime in that manner. And so go after their organization, their structure, and anybody engaged in human smuggling, drug smuggling, and classify them as racketeering. Representative Kanellis. So your question was what happens when they conflict, the enforcement and policy.

Well, the reality is the law shouldn't conflict because if you're enforcing the law and you're a law enforcement officer, you're doing so properly, you use the amount of force necessary. And so if you're talking about when there's an encounter, you treat people with dignity unless force dictates otherwise. There's also the conflict of policy and how we do things. So Democrats and Republicans have failed miserably from Washington to Texas to solve this problem. I'll give you an example. In 17, the Republican president controlled both houses and the presidency and didn't reimburse Texas one dime. Why not? We've been asking for it for a long time.

And so does that conflict with the policies? Yeah, absolutely it does. The federal government's responsible here, and Texas has had to take up the slack. Now we have different ideas of how Texas should take up that slack. Recently you just heard the senator say we're going to spend almost four billion dollars. So the stated goals of border security are threefold. One is cartel quantities of drugs. By that very nature, those are first-degree felonies. The second one is human smuggling, and the third one is terrorism.

There's almost no instances that are recorded by DPS of terrorism. That can tell you that because I've seen the numbers. We've had a lot of human smuggling encounters, but the uptick in first-degree felonies, cartel quantities of drugs, nowhere near what you would even call moving the needle. So right now, what we're paying for, what we've seen in our local counties, here's the conflict. Is it because DPS and where I'm from, and we love all our troopers, I'll take as many as I can, but from a policy perspective, we have hundreds, if not thousands more arrests for misdemeanors of local people. So the state has funded the law enforcement on the front end, but doesn't give me any money for my jail, doesn't give me any money for my courts.

And so that's a conflict in policy. When you look at moving forward, what do we do? Do we continue spending $4 billion? Can the state? Well, I'll tell you what. I've got a different perspective for a strong border. But the cartel quantities of drugs, methamphetamines, heroin, fentanyl, nobody's crossing that through the river. And if you think they are, you're mistaken. And the incidences of when people do cross that through the river is very few. Those are crossing through ports of entry. If you look at our ports of entry, we have some of the worst infrastructure. Mexico has better infrastructure. I've seen it with my own two eyes. I've traveled it.

Better infrastructure than the United States. However, these ports of entry, for instance, the Far Bridge has $40 billion of trade in produce annually. If there's an 80 or 90 percent chance if you had an avocado on Super Bowl Sunday, it came through the far bridge. The Ansel Duis Bridge, another $40 billion. And this is where I live, not my district, but there's no infrastructure. So these trucks cross the bridge, then they spider off because there's no funnel for the trucks. There's no interstate. They go stoplight by stoplight through our towns. So what I would propose is this. If you really want to give our economy a shot in the arm, move goods faster, control the influx of dangerous drugs, which is one of the most important stated goals, is you invest in our economy.

You invest in very secure port infrastructure. infrastructure, you increase our trade, and you stop the drugs at the border, because the reality is we are not getting the return for our money on the $4 billion. What we're getting is a bunch of misdemeanor arrests, and that's what the numbers show. I'm here to talk about numbers and facts, not about anecdotes. And so when you look at the numbers and facts, what are we accomplishing? Not the stated goals of border security for $4 billion a year. So Representative Kanellis, tell me if this is fair. What you're emphasizing is the drugs that are coming across our border, these are not being smuggled in by asylum seekers with kids and luggage. They're coming through our ports of entry, people orchestrating these

drug trafficking occurrences, correct? That's correct. So do we have a problem with influx of immigrants? Yes. Are some of these people criminals? Yes. And is this a challenge that we've got? Yes.

And do we need solutions? Yes. But that's one part of the problem, one of the stated goals of the three. And so one is the influx of illegal people coming in. The other one is cartel quantities of drugs. We are not stopping cartel quantities of drugs. And so we've got a $4 billion. And in my community in particular, we've got – there's so much law enforcement,

but they're generally arresting people that live in our communities and charging in the great majority of misdemeanor offenses. And those are public records. Those are records I've asked for, and you can ask for them yourself. Representative Morales, would you like to weigh in on the role of deterrence when there is a conflict? Yeah, I mean, I again 100% agree with the comments expressed by my colleagues. And more importantly, I think you need to understand if you're at home and you're coming up with your budget for this coming year, and you just spent 2 billion or $4 billion in total, are you going to do the same thing and try to just think that somehow it's going to address the issue?

No, you're going to think outside the box and you're going to try something new. And that's what my colleagues and I have been trying to express to you. The last place that Texas is actually invested on or not invested in is the border. If we do that, every one of you, even on the interior, I'm talking San Antonio, Houston, Austin, all these areas, West Texas, the Panhandle, we will all benefit from it if we can get our goods across faster. You all saw what happened with COVID and you all saw what happened with the effect of the supply and demand. Now, with NAFTA, if we're able to get over 70% of our products now are going to have to be generated here in Canada or Mexico or the United States. That's why you have this additional influx of money coming into Mexico, and we need to be closer partners, not actually pushing Mexico away,

but we need to be closer with them because they are already Texas's number one partner, and we can only grow from it, but only if we invest in our basic infrastructure on our border, and we can do that while helping law enforcement, maintaining the rule of law, having good public policy, and addressing the issue. We have over 800,000 jobs in Texas that remain unfilled. We have a 4% unemployment rate. If you want to better Texas, and if you want to continue to improve the economy of the best state in the United States,

this is how you do it. This is how you take it to the next level. But don't listen to me. Look at the data that is there. Look at the information that you have. We need these jobs. Second, if any one of you just happen to be born on the south side of the Rio Grande and you were facing some of the issues that some of these folks in Latin America are having, you would be the first persons that would actually get up

and drive or trek or walk those 1,000 or so miles to give a better life for your children. So you need to understand where they are coming from, that over 95, 98% of those migrants that are coming just want a better life for them and their families. But we do have to address the issue of legalization and what it did on legalizing, for example, marijuana. We took the incentive, we took the profit element from the cartels, and look what's happened. They're no longer addressing or selling or producing marijuana to the levels that they were because we've taken that element away from them. That's the same thing that we need to do right now with the human smuggling and these migrants coming.

Take that away from the cartel and the human smugglers. Do it through our land ports. And the reason why I came up with 2,000, by the way, I've said this in some of the other panels that I've attended. The mayor of Coahuila, when the influx was first coming that the senator was talking about, they actually took a maquiladora that was not in operation. They retrofitted it so that they could house everyone in there and they did an audit. Every one of those migrants had $2,000 to $5,000 in their pockets because they knew that's what it would cost to be able to cross and pay somebody to smuggle them into the U.S. If Texas actually did an application for asylum and charged that $2,000, that's where I'm talking that we would generate this revenue. You talked about 2.3, 2.4 million apprehensions. Those are not the ones

that actually stayed here. Those are the apprehensions. If you do the numbers at 2,000, I generated close to 5 billion dollars. We've spent four, we would actually be able to make up the four that we have spent, plus make a billion in profit if we just charged on the loan in that $2,000 fee. And I think that that is a way, and some people I understand, or the last panel, they mentioned something about, well, it's not fair, you're charging these $2,000 to folks in Latin America. One they have the money, and two, I think that's more fair and that's more compassionate this way than actually continuing to allow human smugglers and cartels to take advantage

of them in those situations. Would a policy like that deter illegal immigration in general as well, or would that specifically deter human smuggling? I think if you talk to any... Okay, so I work at a law firm. There's 75 of us, and we don't do criminal work and we don't do immigration work because it's so specialized. Every time that I have a number, I have three or four attorneys that I usually refer to

immigration work, everyone that you talk to will tell you, our immigration system is 30, 40 years outdated. We've needed to revamp that system 30 or 40 years. And so part of the messaging was to make sure that everyone understood, especially in Texas, the reason why we're in this position is because of Congress. Not a particular White House, but Congress has failed us for 30 or 40 years. And if you talk to one of the UT professors here that has been on a panel and was very insightful in his comments, the number one base of the Republican Party,

the base, is border and immigration. It resonates at 65%, 70%. So every elected official has every incentive that's a Republican to drum up that issue on border and immigration. But there's no incentive in wanting to fix it, and that's why you have certain congressmen that'll come to Eagle Pass, to Del Rio,

and take that picture on the boat with the AR, with the gun, and then put with the life vest, and then take off and not do a damn thing about it up there in Congress while it's costing you and me and every one of us billions of dollars in state and federal monies. And we need to change that. I want to continue this conversation about enforcement because the elephant in the room on this issue right now is the decision by the United States Supreme Court to stay a federal judge's ruling that would whereas in December when the legal landscape was that Title 42 was going to end, there was no time for Texas lawmakers to act. So, Senator, what, if anything, can the legislature do to prepare for the end of expulsions under Title 42 when the Supreme Court decides that case? Well, thank you for that question. First of all, we have to make sure that we are committed to maintaining the integrity of our communities

and our border in Texas. What the federal government won't do, we're gonna have to do and we will do. And that's not a talking one, it's just a fact. So we will be committed to man the line and hold it until we can get a change in the White House that will provide for the executive direction to the agencies to enforce the law. A lot of it has to do with, yes, I'm not disagreeing about that our Congress has work to do, yes they do,

but a lot of the executive direction going to the agencies from the White House, it drives the message that is allowing people to get the idea that they can come here with no consequence and become a folks come from to be able to to ensure that they don't leave there and come here or that Mexico will enforce their rule of law and stop these the illegal immigrants coming through their country to come to our country through their southern border their southern borders a lot shorter than ours and and they've done it before they did it under what President Trump was in office so so why are they

allowing it's a matter of two to five thousand dollars ahead and it's a it's a commodity and so as long as we make we can maintain our operational control on our side I don't think they have the operational control on their side we need to assist our partners in mexico who is our number one trading partner who we have long i myself and others history and history and blood and family and how important it is to our nation uh that they be stable as well so that's what we can do. Can I add something? I've asked the governor, the governor's office for us to lead on this effort as a state and after

as the ninth biggest economy in the world we should have a seat with Mexico and with Latin America and it would cost a lot less like Senator is saying to be able to do the that wall instead of the entire United States. I have over 770 miles of a shared border with Mexico just in my district alone. That doesn't even take into account the rest of the valley. So take into account that we would be able to save money and also lead on this effort as a state and be able to show the other United States that we can lead on this effort, be at the forefront, and be working in conjunction, not wait for D.C. or for Congress to try to change it. We

can do it, make money off of it, make sure that we maintain a strong economy, maintain the rule of law, and make sure that we take the deterrence and the incentive away from human smuggling and cartels. Representative Canales, I also want to ask you to weigh in on this. But in terms of, Representative Morales just mentioned, his district is almost 800 miles along the border. You also represent a district that's near the border. But many of the people commenting on this, especially in D.C., live hundreds or thousands of miles away from the border. And this debate is often defined in terms of President Trump's positions on immigration. But what can you offer in this conversation that those who live so far away from the border

cannot? So let's start with this. So many people that on one side of the aisle, political aisle, they say, oh, you're a Democrat, you're a liberal, you're for open borders. That's absolute nonsense. And what I'll tell you is I'll give you an example. I filed a bill to protect Border Patrol agents that were attacked by immigrants, creating a felony assault in a Republican legislature and it died. So what I'll tell you is that moving forward when you hear ideas from both sides of the aisle, I live there. I'm raising five children near the border. There is no one, if you're not from there, there's no one that wants security more than I do. And so I want to make sure my children are safe, that if I forget to lock my door at night,

everything's okay. But I also have common sense. And we have to be conservative stewards of our tax dollars, making sure that people are getting the most bang for their buck, that we're actually securing the border, not creating nonsense. And so when you move forward and you look for solutions and you look for how we're going to solve the problem, this idea that you're going to stop it with a fence or that you're going to achieve all these things by just throwing money in certain directions, you've got to realize that the people that are telling you that have no idea what it's like to live there. Speak to someone that lives there, and that's the crux of your question, is these politicians come from Washington. They get on a gunboat, which, by the way, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars that can't fire a gun.

They will not. It's not legal. They cruise up and down the border, and it effectively doesn't do what we say it does, but these guys take a picture with their bulletproof vest and an AR and don't spend one second speaking to local officials, speaking to county judges, speaking to commissioners, speaking to the sheriffs. Nobody. So that's like you getting your news just from a Washington politician and saying that's gospel. Well, that's crazy. And what I would tell you is that everybody in here, regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, you're smart.

You're smart enough to know that there's two sides to every story, two sides to every coin. And when people are taught, there's no political agenda in me. I want safety, but I also want to be a good steward and make sure that when we're spending $4 billion, that we're doing so in a manner which is effective, which is for our economy, that's for safety, for law enforcement. When I'm trying to pass a bill to protect a border patrol and I can't pass it in a Republican legislature, when I'm trying to explain to them that the wall you built or you want to build, we can see them crawl over it in five seconds or use a medieval catapult to launch 50 kilograms of whatever they want right over the border, it begs the question, where are you getting your news from?

Who is it you're believing? Well, I would tell you this. Come on down. I'll invite anybody who wants to come down, and I'll show you South Texas. I'll show you where I raise my babies, and I'll show you the place that, to me, is one of the most beautiful places in the world that does have issues. But the way that, to me, is one of the most beautiful places in the world that does have issues.

But the way that they're framing it for you and the way they're telling you that these are the solutions, I will tell you, is absolutely, they're drumming you up. And they're getting you riled up about something that is definitely a problem, but that's not the solution. And fixable. So, Representative Kanellis, you touched on a piece of legislation that you authored. Tell me more about that. Was it to protect border guards from being, or was it to increase the penalties?

Can you help us understand that? So there's nothing illegal about assaulting a border patrol under Texas law. It's just not. And so what we created was a statute. And so the problem created was a statute. And so the problem with Border Patrol is that when they get attacked, the

policy of the United States government in general is that's a job hazard. You bought that. They generally will not prosecute people that assault border guards, people, Border Patrol. That's generally, my neighbor is a Border Patrol. I took the bill because there was 25 border patrol at his house barbecuing

and were telling me, because one guy had been bit in the face and scuffling, and they talked, and so we went and I did a bunch of research, and the reality is that the large majority of any border patrol agent that is assaulted is not prosecuted by the federal government and is not prosecuted under texas statutes so i filed a bill that made it a felony to felony assault when you assault a border patrol agent that died right here yeah that bill just died in committee it was gone it gone. Well, it didn't become law. In terms of bipartisan solutions, we've touched on the partisanship of this issue a little bit. Do you think there are, and I'll address this to everyone,

do you think there are areas of common ground that Republicans and Democrats can find, for instance, on an issue like this, to address the border crisis, illegal immigration, and the humanitarian crisis? And Senator Flores, I'll address that to you. Well, thank you. Thank you for that question. And yes, as Representative Kamala said, I don't watch the news much anymore. I really don't. I just don't believe them much. But I do believe what my constituents say. I do believe what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard.

And when my neighbors can't go to their ranches because there's military-aged men going through there, they can't take their family to their own property. And in places that we've never seen it before where our sheriffs in my counties even in the district even not even into the hill country are using their resources on bailouts that happen daily and our rural hospitals are being clogged by treating these folks and not our regular

citizens which is a fact and who has to put the bill is the local folks in my rural counties and this is far from the border that this is occurring and in a volume that we've not seen before nor have they seen before and so this is the reason, and so what they want and what they should expect and what we should provide is to make sure that they can go to their ranches with their family and their own property and enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That they should be safe in their communities. that those rural hospitals are not being overwhelmed and we having to foot the bill because of these smugglers and the people being hurt. So that's where I get my initiative. So when we're talking about, yes, there may be, there's narrative on both sides about trying to tell us what we should think, but so long as we remember who we are and who we represent and that while we may have differences, I think there are some policy differences with my colleagues here, we share a lot in common, besides where we grew up,

besides our families and our histories, but we share, and I have represented a Democrat-dominated district, but this isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. This is a community issue. This is something that we raised our right hand to uphold the laws of the state of the United States. We all did up here. I know they take it seriously and I do too. How to arrive at that? I think we don't disagree that we need to arrive at a point where the communities are stabilized,

where the communities are safe, where businesses flourish. And where we have our immigration policy, which is a federal, but that should be done. Again, there's a wrong way and there's a right way. And my life experiences is the right way. And we should not subsidize the wrong way. But rather, there's times that we must stand for our communities and stand for what our Constitution means. And that comes in very different forms at times as long as those basic tenants those fences remain intact we'll get through this as we've got through these things before with the marielitos when they came from cuba

or when you when we had that the haitian boat people and time and time again through our history we've had these things happen and we need to learn from how they were solved. And then work together in this great legislature, in this great state, to arrive at what's best for Texas and the people of Texas. Representative Morales, are there solutions such as, or policies such as Representative Canales' bill about assaulting border guards that Republicans and Democrats can agree on? Oh, yes. Definitely. I want to talk about the common issues that Republicans and Democrats and the issues that I've seen in my workshops throughout the district. But before I do, I wanted to address something really quickly from Representative Canales. You know, this is our home. For those that don't know, our border is our home. Our business just celebrated 35 years of being in business as

a family-owned tortilla factory. It did everything for my family and really changed us for the better. It allowed me to go to UT as a first-generation immigrant, to law school, and then also my sister was able to go to UT, the two of us. So it did a lot of groundwork for it. So if you think that we don't have an incentive to make sure that we fix or that we are for open borders, we're not. We want to fix this issue. And you're hearing from two individuals that actually live and have most,

if not all of our assets on the border. So we want to address this issue. Second, I serve the largest district in the entire state of Texas. I've done a number of workshops on border and immigration. And knowing the area that we represent, which is south central Texas on the border where Eagle Pass is, it starts there and will go north all the way now, northwest all the way now to El Paso. It is very diverse. It is very unique. And I may be biased, but would

say it is the most beautiful district in the entire state of Texas. But in doing that, I visited with independents, Republicans, and Democrats. They've been at the table. They've been at the workshops. They've been there to provide insight and information. And every one of them, we've been able to address issues that actually bring us together, that we actually have a common way of addressing. And you have Republicans and independents that are supporting these measures

that we just talked about. The issue is now is getting our leaders to actually push that envelope, to know, to feel, and this is where you all come in as constituents, if you're listening to us, if this is gonna be broadcasted, where you can make that effort of going out to your leadership if he happens to be, or she happens to be a Republican or an Independent and voice your concern that this is a solution.

Listen to Terry, listen to the Senator, listen to Eddie. They have some viable solutions so that they feel comfortable that they have the backing of every constituent that is representing them in their district. When you're talking about solutions, I'm talking about in my letter to the governor, for example, I put a migrant EIN, Employment Identification Number Pilot Project, where for example, the migrants that would actually, where we would charge them the application fee,

they could remain in the state of Texas with certain conditions. One of them, we would give them an RDIF chip, like a purple card, which would allow them to now have, it's not like a, it's more like a driver's license, but would allow them to now have it's not like a small show like a driver's license but would allow them now to be able to show it in case they get stopped they would come out of the shadows that would feel comfortable in going into the gas stations to go in into a to be buying their groceries and stuff like that and actually paying into the system not

taking from the system one of the conditions would be that they couldn't participate in any sort of with a a minor few, very few exceptions, but they wouldn't be able to take from the state system or any of the benefits. Another condition would be that there would be an annual renewal fee so that we could continue to monitor and make sure that the state is making money.

Another condition could be that they could not receive anything over a Class C misdemeanor. All of them, most of them, 99% are model citizens, and you know that. But that would further the incentive of making sure that there is a long-term plan, whether it be a five- or a seven-year plan, just for residency. I'm not talking citizenship. Again, we have to be cognizant of who our audience is, and it's the Republican base, and make sure that we address those concerns. You already know that none of them, and they all think that we are allowing them over here

and that it's open borders so that they can vote at the next election. That's not what we want to express. With this EIN project and the RDIF tag, you'd be able to track them. You'd be able to know that they're paying into the system, and they'd also, you'd be also, whenever they're receiving a salary, we'd also be able to take all of their withholding and earnings. That way, again, they're paying into the system, you know, not taking from the system. For our final question, and our time is too short, but we hear a lot about the political

semantics instead of some of the policies that you just outlined. I want to address Representative Canales and then Representative Morales. You can weigh in on this too. Is there any daylight between the way that y'all view this issue and the way that some of your Democratic colleagues in D.C. view this issue? So I'll tell you this, is that I think it's Einstein says, if you do the same thing over and over

and expect a different result, that's in definition of insanity. And if we keep doing the same thing that we're doing right now, we keep getting the same result. We've been doing it long enough. Is it making the difference? Yeah, but not the difference we're paying for.

And anybody who's conservative knows that $4 billion is a lot of money of tax dollars. And so when you look at that and you try to say, well, what are we doing in Texas? What we're doing is picking up the slack from a government that's not doing its job. And how we do that here, well, we have policy differences, maybe different ideas, and maybe we have different, but we all want the same goal. We want to save Texas. We want to make sure we control this influx of illegal immigrants. Representative Morales has some bold ideas. I can't say I agree with all of them, but those are ideas. At least we're thinking. There's people thinking. What's not thinking is to continue to pour $4 billion to solve Washington's problem

and expect a different result than we got last session because we haven't seen a difference. You just heard the senator say, we're seeing them in even bigger numbers. So obviously that's not working. Now what's the policy discussion difference between them? I had somebody ask me about AOC the other day. I said she's one of the most well-prepared, well-spoken, misguided people I've ever met. I don't see such a difference between Washington Democrats and the South Texas Democrat, I guarantee you. We're probably the most conservative voting members of our caucus. And I'll tell you this, and I'll reiterate it, is that the ideas that you're hearing from us are from people who have the greatest vested interest in making sure that my assets, all my investments, my business, my real estate, that they maintain their value. If you want to ask somebody how they think, ask them to think with their wallet.

And I think with my wallet. And I'll tell you, I want to make sure that my South Texas is safe for my kids, is safe for my business, is safe for my investments. And is that the same thing that Washington has in mind? I don't think they'd give a damn or they would be doing something. And so perhaps we have a difference on how we get from point A to point B, but at least Republicans in Texas are trying to get from point A to point B. And so at least Democrats are trying to get from point A to point B. We've been abandoned by our federal government.

We've come to have to make our own solutions. And maybe we have a difference of opinion. And my difference is, well, let's try something else because this isn't working. But at the end of the day, I'll tell you what's not working at all. Washington. Wow. Wow. I'm just going to drop the mic.

Remember, we didn't go to Washington, D.C. during the quorum break. Right or wrong, we didn't leave. I didn't leave either. I went home because my wife said she'd divorce me if I left. And I think that's what our constituents were expecting from us in the districts that we represent, and to understand that we represent everyone. My slogan when I first ran, I had never run for office before, was I was going to be a

voice for all, whether it be independent Democrat or Republican. And I think I have been able to somewhat, you know, be able to address those issues. Have I been able to get it right? Is there room for improvement? Of course there is. But man, I couldn't have said it better than my colleague here, as well as the Senator's comments. You have a Republican, you have two Democrats, but I've been in these panels out there in East Texas and in West Texas with the only Democrat probably sitting on the panel. And yet we've been able to address issues and have common ground on the panel and with

the public than you wouldn't think of. And so I think that's what we need to focus on. But more importantly, whenever you all are out there and you're being represented by a Republican in state office, the first thing that the Republican base does, as soon as they see the Republican working with independents and Democrats, they primary them. Why would you do that?

The system is set up in that very same fashion for us to have compromise and to work together. Why would you primary someone that's actually working within the system? We have, the Democrats don't have it yet that bad, where we get primaried or get threatened to be primaried, but it's important for you all to note, if you want an elected leader and you want them to be effective, there's got to be compromise. It's better to get a 7 or 8 out of 10 things than not get anything just because, you know,

you wanted that representative of yours to be the loudest mouth in the room but actually not get anything done. Or do you want somebody that's actually a little bit more quiet but will actually get 10 15 20 bills you know pass through and be effective for your district think about that senator we have to go but i do want to give you just one second i do want to give you a chance to respond to that well you know it's it's human behavior and and uh if you ask the man who represents me in pleasonton henry quayle he'd say that the Democrats

came after him pretty hard too to try to take him out for working together, staying with some issues where he voted his district. So it's both sides, two wrongs don't make a right. But what's important is that, I think it was Aristotle who said, people are going to make mistakes when you repeat them that make them stupid. So we want to be, this type of discourse of working together,

we have the same goals in mind. We know what we want, we uphold our constitutional oaths, and how we get there the making of the sausage sometimes not pretty but so long as the end of the day that when we come out that we know we've done the best we can in our our capacity to make our state secure to make our play our our citizens safe to have our our state continue to be the shining light of the world. And whether you're Democrat or Republican in this state, as long as we remember at the end of the day that we're all Texans and Americans, we're going to get through this

like we've done everything else through history. Amen. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for being here with us to discuss this important topic. Don't go far because our election integrity panel is next at 2 p.m. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much for listening.

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