It is absolutely vital that we have strong security at our international borders. But we currently have a political and humanitarian crisis rolling along our Southern border. There is only one way to fix this crisis. Republicans and Democrats must come together and fix our broken immigration laws. 

 

Our immigration laws have not been revised and amended since Ronald Regan was President and we are therefore trying to dig ourselves out of a hole with a broken shovel. It is simply not working. This is unacceptable. 

 

Several of our U.S. and State Representatives, many of whom represent our Texas border communities, have rolled up their sleeves and have begun drafting revisions to our Immigration laws that modernize our laws and enable them to address our current border crisis. Additionally, the strongest federal bi-partisian immigration bill was introduced last year in Congress.  However, Donald Trump demanded that his Republican allies in the House and Senate not approve it because he thought that would hurt Joe Biden.  In the next Congress, I applaud efforts to bring this law back up for a vote so that we can finally begin reforming our broken federal immigration laws.  

 

I applaud both state and federal representatives who are working to fix this crisis  and look forward to working with them as we make these much needed updates and revisions to our immigration laws. 

 

I have been to the Southern Border in Eagle Pass twice with a group of women that I helped lead from my local church here in Waco.  I have seen the border with my own two eyes.  Crossings are now at a very low level.  However, our immigration laws are still broken and I will advocate for strong, desperately needed reforms to those laws.  

Without question, it will take Republicans and Democrats working together to get these laws passed. We must stop electing politicians who just like to fight about the problem and not work to fix it. 

 

I support all types of physical and technological efforts to make our border safe and will support legislation designed to give us the best and most advanced technological border security. 

 

Our issues regarding the Southern border go much deeper than security though. We must also provide more immigration judges and court personnel to process legitimate asylum claims and alleviate the tremendous backlog of pending cases in our immigration courts. 

 

Also, the vast majority of those seeking entry into this country are coming here to work but under our current system they are not allowed to work while their immigration status is being adjudicated in the court system. I support our local businesses who are literally begging for workers to take jobs that Americans are not taking - jobs in dairies, farms, food production plants and construction sites - by expanding the number of temporary work visas for those whose claims have been legally processed, are in the U.S. legally and are simply awaiting their immigration judge to rule on their case. 

 

I have spent time along the Texas/Mexico border, talking with legislators and community members to deepen my understanding of the situation and I am eager to have more of these conversations. I want to work with legislators, on both our state and federal levels - especially those who live in and represent our border communities - to come up with common sense, bi-partisian solutions to finally address this political and humanitarian crisis.