Texas GOP Vote

Much to my surprise, there’s absolutely no trigger in this bill tied to border security, or any metrics, or measuring stick by which we could measure our success in securing the border. And I think it’s absolutely critical that we need both of those.

Drug smugglers and human traffickers don’t use E-verify, so we’re going to have to stop them through our border strategy. My amendment would plug multiple gaping holes in the border security provisions.   Read more »

The immigration reform bill, sponsored by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has sparked a lot of discussion around the country bring about the kind of national debate we have needed for a very long time. Recently, Americans for Tax Reform founder, Grover Norquist, testified before the Senate about the pending legislation and why immigration reform is needed. He opened his testimony with the statement, "People are an asset, not a liability."

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This week, Norquist sat down with TexasGOPVote to expand on his thoughts on immigration reform, and I asked him about this comment and what it means in the context of immigration reform.   Read more »

VOCES Action and King Street Live teamed up last night to introduce a panel of immigration experts to discuss immigration reform and border security. The event was moderated by VOCES Action National Director and TexasGOPVote blogger Adryana Boyne and panelists included TexasGOPVote blogger and US Border Watch volunteer Bob Price, TexasGOPVote blogger and immigration attorney Linda Vega, former Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, founder of Cross Culture Communications Edward Retta, and

Senator Marco Rubio has launched a new ad campaign to explain and gain support for his Conservative Immigration Reform program. The ad targets what we have been saying on TexasGOPVote for quite some time, de facto amnesty, strong border security and other strict rules on immigrants who are in this country either through illegal entry or visa overstays.

Current immigration policy and our refusal to deal with the related problems have, in fact, given

John Esquivel Chief Patrol Agent Laredo Sector Headquarters

On April 4, 2013 SREC SD21 Naomi Narvaiz led a delegation to Laredo, Texas to meet with John Esquivel, Chief Patrol Agent of the Laredo Sector Headquarters, US Customs and Border Protection. Others in the delegation were Jeff Narvaiz, Trudy and Russell Hayter from Hays County GOP, Lori Granados Campaign Manager for Senator Donna Campbell SD25 and myself from Comal County. We found Chief Esquivel to be welcoming and disposed to answer any questions we had.   Read more »

It is clear that border security and immigration reform are two separate issues. Yet the two must be linked together as we try to develop a responsible solution to both of these problems facing our nation. Today, in Houston, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is visiting to make a speech about border security and the job her department is doing. It is interesting that she chose Houston as the place to deliver this. Texans have been hammering her about border security from the day she took office.

The truth is, and we must acknowledge this, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is more secure now than it has ever been. One of the few good things the Obama Administration has done is to increase security along the border.

North Korea Dictator Kim Jong Un has signed orders putting his rockets on combat ready status, and according to Kim Jong Un's U.S. Mainland Strike Plan, Austin, TX is one of the top 4 American cities to be targeted by this potential nuclear missile strike. Occupy Movements, plastic bags, and Hippie Festivals are no longer the greatest threat to this liberal-controlled Texas City.

Construction mogul Donald Trump stood before CPAC last week and called for a de facto amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country. Trump said Republicans should block immigration reform because 100% of any new citizens created by immigration reform would be Democrats.

This is more of the typical block-everything, solve-nothing immigration policy that has left Republicans on the short side of the vote in the past two presidential elections. We have followed this path for many years now and we are no closer to solving our nation's broken immigration system now than we were then.   Read more »

For a long time now, I have been saying that doing nothing about our broken immigration system has created a de-facto amnetsty for the millions of illegal immigrants in this country. Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is catching up and saying the same thing. In a message to its members, Rob Engstrom, Seniro Vice President and National Political Director, U.S. Chamber of Commerce said, "The immigration system is broken. With over 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., doing nothing is de facto amnesty."

Nearly 40% of these 11 million people did not enter this country illegally. They came here legally and over-stayed their

A Mexican officer claims the military is indeed at war with drug cartels for territory in northern Mexico and that vast numbers of children have been left homeless and hungry by the war in the seemingly unreachable cartel-controlled territory. The officer spoke with me in person on the condition of anonymity. When I asked him to explain which cartels were fighting in Nuevo Laredo, he explained that things were not so simple and not so easily defined.   Read more »