© Provided by Washington Examiner Bruno Lozano, the mayor of Del Rio, Texas, tells me by phone that the humanitarian crisis in his border town is real, alarming, and growing rapidly. The blind eye that the Biden administration has turned toward his and other border towns, he says, represents an untenable approach.
His political affiliation as a Democrat does not prevent him from venting his frustration about the fact that the chaotic, mass border invasion has become a left-right political football. No one is treating it like the national crisis Lozano believes it is becoming.
"I hate that it's become so politicized, because once that happens, it's going to be that much more than trying to get anything done," said a frustrated Lozano, who ran for mayor in 2018 on a platform of rebuilding infrastructure and attracting new economic development. He was elected overwhelmingly by the voters of the Southwest Texas border town.
The office itself is nonpartisan, but he is a Democrat.
"I don't have the luxury of waiting for the Biden administration to make the decision," he tells me. "This is real time. As mayor, I need to respond in real time, immediately, when I get these items that come across my desk ... I have to protect my constituents." Lozano says he finds himself hard-pressed to protect his town's treasures and blames, in part, a tone-deaf presidential administration that seems oblivious to a growing humanitarian and public safety problem.
Lozano is passionate about his hometown. It is the origin of his extended family, the place where he shares Sunday dinner with them every week. It is the place where he formed his childhood friendships and the place he returned to after serving in the military and working in the finance industry. He came back hoping to bring new ideas and development to his hometown.
He is personally invested in this majority-Hispanic community's success, security, and prosperity. That's why he doesn't hold back criticism for his own political party when he sees his hometown, like so many towns just like it along hundreds of miles of border.
"The local economy, it's a big slap in the face," he says. "You're going to sit here and do a catch and release for unlawful entry that's not contributing to my local taxes, but you won't let persons that have a legal visa in Mexico, who just want to come to the United States and shop or visit their families, because of COVID-19 restrictions."
"You can't have your cake and eat it too," he says. "You can't close down the port to legal entry and then have unlawful entry come in. That's a national security violation. That's a breach in national security on a level that I never even would have imagined in modern times. We're literally letting people in unlawfully."
© Provided by Washington ExaminerDel Rio Texas Mayor Bruno Lozano at Skillet's restaurant in his hometown with Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales. (Rep. Tony Gonzales staff)
Lozano says that what really concerns him is the number of children coming in without adults - in particular, teenage males coming across. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said two weeks ago they are averaging well over 550 unaccompanied migrant children per day.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that "the majority of people that come to the border will be turned away" but not unaccompanied minors. This doesn't help Lozano, because they are still a problem.
Lozano believes that the growing chaos and insecurity is a major reason why the Rio Grande Valley and all of South Texas, a Hispanic and Democratic political bastion for decades, abruptly shifted in Trump's direction in the 2020 election.
Del Rio is the county seat of Val Verde County, about 400 miles southeast of El Paso, where the river finally turns its course to the southeast and toward the Gulf of Mexico. Trump flipped the majority-Hispanic border county, winning it by 10 points. Both Hillary Clinton (by 8 points) and Barack Obama (by 6 points) had carried Val Verde comfortably, but evidently, the voters care more about border security than Democrats calculated.
Indeed, the story all along the Texas border was similar, from El Paso in the west to Brownsville in the east. Every county along the border shifted toward Trump between 2016 and 2020. The largest counties in South Texas delivered results 19, 23, 28, and 55 points more Republican than in the prior presidential election.
"I can tell you that I'm disappointed in what this administration passed down, and I know a lot of us are," he says. "I can see why Val Verde County went as far red as it did, in the thousands, because I can see now clearly that they believe that Trump had a better policy in place as far as protecting the national security and border security."
Lozano says he is getting little or no political pushback for attacking Biden - in fact, the residents have been supportive.
"The comments that we're getting from those that live in Del Rio are appreciative of my stance and my frustration, and the fact that I'm able to express it clearly," he says. He points out that Del Rio was hit hard by last month's freak winter storm and that this crisis is compounding its impact. "It is very frustrating that here, we are just still recovering from that winter storm that left us with no water, no electricity, and you want to release migrants into the city of Del Rio and ignore the impact of one crisis on top of the other? It is hard to describe just how bad things got for us here, and yet, we find ourselves again trying to explain on a completely different issue how bad things are for us here."
"How can this administration not prioritize citizens in the United States first?" Lozano asks. "I just don't get it. I'm not trying to be ugly, I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm not trying to be harsh. They're destitute, I get it." But he adds that there are illegal crossers that no one in the administration wants to address - the ones with dangerous criminal pasts who cross the border back and forth.
Last month, U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to Del Rio Sector arrested convicted rapist Roman Gonzalez-Flores, a citizen of Mexico, shortly after he illegally entered the U.S.
The CBP has encountered 56 illegal immigrants with prior sexual assault convictions since the fiscal year began Oct. 1.
Lozano, who served in the U.S. military, said he would like to have Biden come to Del Rio, not to talk but to listen. "I would tell him that, how would I phrase this? I would tell him I wish he had discussed border security with mayors and judges that are from the border. But since that didn't happen, then I would just say, these are the things that we need immediately and just go from there ... We need shelter, we need federal presence to protect these migrants."
"We need food," he continues. "The volunteer groups need a budget. They need security. They need medical services. Those are the immediate needs for these migrants. Then we also need the additional border patrol, CBP officers, judges, magistrates and we need those facilities to be in place to process migrants. Because the last thing that we need to be condoning is unlawful entry, and we need to really support the legal points of entry."
"I just don't understand why that's so complicated," he adds.
Tags: Opinion, Biden Administration, Joe Biden, Border, Border Security, Immigration, Texas
Original Author: Salena Zito
Original Location: Democratic Texas border mayor frustrated with Biden administration as crisis heightens