March 6th’s edition of CNN’s “The Lead” featured Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), where they largely discussed the kidnapping of 4 Americans who crossed the border from Texas. He explained that this incident “is really the tip of the iceberg and this is not an isolated incident. This happens all the time.” While explaining what happens, he started calling for the US to treat the cartels like terrorists.
“[W]e need to recognize this is really the tip of the iceberg and this is not an isolated incident. This happens all the time. I’m glad it’s caught the attention of the FBI and the press this time…it’s an alarm that I’ve been sounding since USMCA was signed, that I thought that was a missed opportunity to not talk about security with Mexico. It’s a huge concern. They’re our second-largest trading partner and we have a problem across the border that we haven’t addressed and its violence.”
With Gonzalez calling south Texas home, he has a very unique and honest perspective on the way the situation has evolved along the border. “I live across the border in the McAllen-Brownsville area. McAllen is the third-safest city in the United States of America, so it’s safer than most cities in the country. So, when you cross — when you’re on the U.S. side, it’s a dramatic difference. But I haven’t driven across the border in 17 years because violence erupted around that period, and it’s never let up and it’s something that I think we haven’t had the political will to address.”
This kind of testimony isn’t being given by your traditional thin-skinned, dripping-in liberalism democrat either. Instead, this man is a Texan and a man of God above all else. To hear him talk about the problems at the border you would swear he’s a conservative at heart.
The truth of the matter is, he is a man who is simply tired of seeing his land taken advantage of, and he is a man who has had enough of standing idly by as this happens. Now speaking out, he is going against the very nature of the democratic ticket on the issue, but he is also one of the very few democrats who has looked these atrocities in the eye and come back to talk about it. Instead, they have been taking the rose-colored view of the situation and think it can be solved by ignoring it.
For Gonzalez, the cartel needs a battle from this side of the border they will respond to.
“But we need a much more aggressive approach. We need to be targeting cartels as if they were terrorists, because, at the end of the day, they are. You saw the videos today. I’ve seen videos for the last 20 years even much more horrific than what we’re seeing on national news today. And it’s something that hasn’t had an aggressive, meaningful approach from our governments, and I think it’s time. And, as I said, they’re our second-largest trading partner. It’s becoming, if it’s not already, an economic national security liability for us.”
Coming face to face with the realities of illegal immigration is not an easy thing to deal with. Being the elected official for those same people is even harder. The people in south Texas cannot take on these cartels alone, but the cartels are bringing the fight right to their doorsteps. This is where the Federal government needs to step in, and given the recent budget Biden approved, they are being prevented from improving their job in any meaningful manner.
Instead, they are helping to rot this country from the inside out by allowing the cartels to adjust to our strategies, but to also beat us in technology. They have been able to do a great job of this during democratic administrations because they simply don’t care enough to address the problem. Simply put, another illegal claiming asylum today is another democratic vote next year.
