Ted Cruz Challenger Joins ‘Border Security’ Task Force, Immediately Opposes Resolution Denouncing Open Border

Representative Colin Allred (D., Texas) voted against a House resolution denouncing President Joe Biden’s approach to the southern border right after he joined a task force to promote border security.

Allred, the Democratic challenger to Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), spoke at a press conference on Tuesday for the launch of Democrats for Border Security, a task force designed to pressure Congress into acting on the southern border. In his brief remarks, Allred accused politicians of taking advantage of the border crisis instead of pursuing actual solutions.

“I know that our border communities are not just political backdrops,” Allred said. “And I am sick and tired of politicians talking about the problem, about the crisis we are experiencing at our border, but being unwilling to actually solve it.”

He did not name President Joe Biden or demand that any action be taken by the executive branch to strengthen border security. On the same day, Allred voted against a resolution put forward by Representative Monica De La Cruz (R., Texas) condemning Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for facilitating record levels of illegal immigration across the border.

“Whereas President Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas have created the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history,” the resolution begins.

De La Cruz’s resolution accuses the Biden administration of having “systematically dismantled effective border security measures and interior immigration enforcement” and “purposely violated United States immigration law” through its lack of enforcement. The resolution lists a series of perceived immigration policy failures by the Biden administration and executive actions the president could take to mitigate the flow of illegal migrants.

Over a dozen Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans in voting for the resolution on Tuesday to add more pressure on Biden to ramp up border security. Allred issued a joint statement with Representatives Henry Cuellar (D., Texas) and Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas) after the border-resolution vote.

“In January we voted for a resolution condemning the status quo of our immigration system because of the crisis at our border. In the face of that crisis, Senate Republicans rejected the opportunity to pass a bipartisan compromise that would help fix our broken immigration system, all in the name of petty politics,” the statement reads.

“This crisis is directly affecting Texans and our border communities, and the time for resolutions has passed. We call on House Republicans and Speaker Johnson to bring the bipartisan compromise to the House floor for a vote.” National Review has reached out for additional comment.

All three Texas Democrats are members of the border-security task force. Allred and Gonzalez voted against the resolution, and Cuellar voted for it. Republicans widely opposed the bipartisan border deal in the Senate for what conservatives viewed as insufficient measures to curtail illegal immigration.

Polling from Gallup last month showed immigration is ranked by Americans as the most important issue facing the country and is considered a significant threat to national security. The gruesome murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant brought further scrutiny to the Biden administration’s lax approach to immigration.

Allred easily won the Texas Democratic Senate primary on Super Tuesday with nearly 60 percent of the vote, compared with 16 percent for his closest opponent. The southern border will likely be central to the general-election fight between Allred and Cruz. The Truth and Courage PAC, a pro-Cruz super PAC, is already hitting Allred for calling a wall at the southern border “racist” earlier in his political career.

Texas is one of the states hit hardest by the illegal-immigration surge happening under the Biden administration. Governor Greg Abbott’s emergency measures to secure the border, known as Operation Lone Star, have faced legal challenges from the Justice Department for taking immigration enforcement into the state’s hands.