Immigration is taking center stage in Texas’ Senate race. Here’s what Colin Allred’s and Ted Cruz’s records show.
With three and half months left until Election Day, both candidates are campaigning on border and immigration issues: Allred is running campaign ads that tout headlines about him breaking with his party to condemn Biden, while Cruz laced into the president’s policies in a lively speech at the Republican National Convention Tuesday, blaming Biden for several recent high-profile murders allegedly committed by immigrants who entered the country illegally.
Allred disputed the idea that he has only recently made the border a priority, pointing to his ties to the border city of Brownsville, where his mother is from and his grandfather worked as a U.S. Customs officer. He acknowledged that “too often, Democrats have failed to be serious” about responding to border crises, though he also pointed the finger at Cruz and other Republicans for Congress’ long-running failure to pass a major immigration overhaul.
Allred said he has made it clear when he supports Biden’s border policies — like with last month’s executive order that halts asylum claims when illegal crossings hit a certain point — and he has spoken out where he disapproves. He said his vote for the Republican border resolution was a prime example, showing “I disagreed with what I thought was a much-delayed response to what had been an obvious crisis for some time.
“It was only intended to be used by folks in an election like this to say, ‘well, you didn't support this,’” he said. Sharon Navarro, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said Allred is on the right track strategically trying to convey support for a bipartisan approach, though she noted that voters often tune out policy specifics in campaigns dominated by sound bites.
Recently, Cruz has been calling on Allred to talk about the recent killing of a 12-year-old Houston girl, Jocelyn Nungaray, who authorities say was murdered by two Venezuelan migrants who entered the country illegally. The suspects were apprehended by Border Patrol earlier this year and released into the country to await immigration court proceedings, federal authorities said; Cruz recently filed legislation aimed at keeping migrants in custody if detention beds are available.