By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
Sixty-four Republican members of the House of Representatives, including Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, visited Eagle Pass Wednesday, working to raise the visibility of challenges on the United States Southern Border.
(The entire press conference can be viewed here.)
“I first want to tell you that we have a great cross section of the House. We have 64 House Republicans that have joined us here in Eagle Pass, they represent 26 states, one territory, you have everybody from California to Maryland, from Michigan to Florida. We represent over half the U.S. states because every state in America is now a border state. And we’ve seen that on vivid display today,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Johnson’s complete remarks can be found here .
According to Congressman Tony Gonzales’, the group flew into San
Antonio Tuesday night where they had dinner with regional sheriffs and other law enforcement officials and rode into Eagle Pass early Wednesday in buses.
Del Rio and Eagle Pass are in Gonzales’ 23rd Congressional District. While many eviscerated the event as a dog and pony show on social media, Gonzales’ has been working to bring fellow legislators, including Democrats, down to the border with more than 300 members on 21 visits.
Before Gonzales supported Johnson for Speaker, he asked that Johnson make the border his top priority.
After Gonzales watched several thousand people illegally cross the border several weeks ago, he reached out to Johnson to quickly schedule the visit.
Wednesday, the group visited including visits with ranchers, Border Patrol officials as well as visiting a “migrant” processing center and closed the border visit with a media event.
According to a quick Google search, the nearly 100 journalists on hand at Eagle Pass’s Shelby Park had nearly 8,000 stories filed from the visit.
However, none of the handful of stories reviewed captured the moment during the event when a family of migrants decided 3 p.m. during a Speaker of the House’s press conference was the ideal time to cross the Rio Grande.
Many of the photographers ran about 30 yards to the river bank to capture images of the group crossing while the press conference continued. Several of the congressional members also wandered over to observe. The family came across, was loaded up into white vans and whisked away by Border Patrol and Texas Guard members.
The crossing had become a normal part of life on the border for many, something Gonzales discussed afterwards.
He said he wanted to give his fellow members a chance to meet people along the border and understand what life is like as he works to bring visibility to the challenges.
“So what I tell the people of our district is we have to continue to be vocal,” Gonzales said. “We can’t allow this to be the new normal. If we allow this to be the new normal, we will never get our lives back.”
The writer can be reached at JoelaLangton@gmail.com
