CNN Newsroom: Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) Is Interviewed About Expiration Of Title 42

Interview

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Well, I think the message has gotten through. Clearly, the Biden administration and Secretary Mayorkas did a lot of work in preparation leading up to the lifting of Title 42, which I was against. I wanted to extend it another two, three months to give us time to build more infrastructure. But at the end of the day, I spoke with our Border Patrol chief yesterday, and from the conversation we had, it was a pretty uneventful day.

We had regular crossings. They're enforcing Title 8. I think we're just back to basics and back to using the traditional immigration laws that we had in the books that were enforcing prior to Title 42, which are very effective if enforced. And I think the message has gotten through to migrants that they need to get a reservation on their app, and if they don't, if they show up and get deported, they could be out for a minimum of five years.

It's a pretty severe punishment for coming in unlawfully. We have sent a message, I think, pretty thoroughly to countries in Central America. Also, Mexico, I believe, is doing more of these days. I heard they were sending thousands of national troops to their southern border, something I've been asking for the last six years. I think Mexico could do so much more in defending their southern border and stopping the mass migration coming to our border.

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Yes, well, our Border Patrol chief established a staging center on the golf course, which is right on the Rio Grande. This is in one of them in Brownsville. It's called Camp Monument. People come in through a gate there and lead to this place where they're processed, one by one, their identification is taken from their -- taken a photo that has facial identification. And we create a file for them and start moving them, usually laterally and then north.

But, you know, now we're enforcing Title 8. I think there's going to be some strict measures. I think you're going to see an uptick in deportations, but also a downtick in just crossings the way we had the last few months.

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Well, they were tragically wrong, right? I saw Ted Cruz and a few senators down there yesterday trying to create a big hoopla over nothing. I think they were all hoping and praying that the lifting of Title 42 was going to be a monumental failure for President Biden. Ultimately, it doesn't seem that it turned out that way for them.

And we're starting to see more order on the border. We're starting to see an orderly process of migrants not come in at the numbers that they were. And the numbers that are crossing now are under the capability and capacity of Border Patrol and CBP and law enforcement on our border.

Now, having said that, I continue to urge my colleagues to support a bill that I've filed called the Safe Zone Act that creates safe zones in places like Central America and around the world for migrants to be able to show up and claim asylum at that juncture and not have to force them to walk 1,500 miles to 2,000 miles to our southern border.

That does several things. One, it takes -- it allows Border Patrol -- it takes the pressure off our border and allows Border Patrol and law enforcement to do what they've been trained to do. And it also removes the cartels out of the equation of trafficking people through Mexico and enriching themselves by billions of dollars every year.

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Well, I mean I'd like to see more from everyone. Everyone needs to -- it should be all decks on hand on the table and working towards a resolution. I would definitely like to be engaged more by our administration, our president, our vice president, cabinet members who make trips down there, come down, visit the border.

But let's come up with solutions and ideas that are out of the box that have not been done before that can actually have a long term impact on our southern border. I say this all the time. This is not a Democratic or Republican problem. It's an American problem that needs to be addressed by both parties with common sense policy.

When Trump was in office, you'd see Democrats going down to the border pointing fingers at President Trump. Now we have Biden in office, and you see Republicans on the border pointing fingers at Biden. But we don't have enough proposals with real long term solutions that can actually address the problem on the border.

For us on the border, this is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is an American problem that impacts communities on the border. And I think that the administration, regardless if it's a Democrat or a Republican, should pay attention to border communities who have been dealing with the brunt of this for decades.

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Thank you.

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