Fact check: Allred gets called out on border policies

(The Center Square) – A Texas Democrat running for U.S. Senate is under scrutiny for his claims about border security.

Similar to Senate Democrats claiming to support border security, including distancing themselves from Biden-Harris administration policies, U.S. Rep. Collin Allred, D-Dallas, who’s challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says he will secure the border.

In a recent campaign ad, Allred says, “I’m working with both parties to finally secure the border, to add more border patrol agents, crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.”

The ad was filmed in front of a border wall Allred has repeatedly said is racist, a claim made by many Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Allred has endorsed.

In a recent KXAN News Austin interview, Allred was asked to comment on a claim he made when he was running for Congress saying of the Trump administration and Congress, “If they build that racist wall, my generation is the one that will tear it down.”

Allred said the comment was taken out of context.

KXAN then published a clip of Allred’s claims saying it wasn’t taken out of context. It shows Allred during a 2018 primary debate making the border wall claim and saying, “This is the biggest issue facing the Democratic Party. We don’t stand up for this, I just don’t think there’s any point in electing us. This is the number one issue that’s facing us right now,” referring to expanding citizenship to DACA recipients.

A federal judge has twice ruled that DACA is illegal. The Fifth Circuit has also sided with Texas in a lawsuit to end it. Allred said deporting DACA recipients “is a racist plan. This plan is intended to take us back to a period in which we had a race-based immigration system. It’s a plan that I will stand against with everything that I have. There is no trade that we can make here. If they want votes to pass a budget, they need to give us a clean DREAM Act.”

In the program’s first five years, 79,000 DACA recipients admitted to the U.S. had arrest records.

In his campaign ad, Allred appears to be standing near an Obama-Biden-era border wall. Former President Barack Obama constructed 128 miles of border wall, including in the Democratic region of El Paso. The ad shows Allred with Culberson County Sheriff Oscar Carrillo, a Democrat, who claimed on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 that he hadn’t caught any terrorists coming through, “just economic migrants looking for work.”

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists in U.S. history have been apprehended. Texas Department of Public Safety is also warning of an increased number of “Special Interest Aliens” illegally entering Texas from Mexico.

Allred told KXAN, “When we talk about border security, it’s about resources, personnel and technology. That’s what we had in the Senate bill,” referring to a bill that went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Cruz and others oppose it, arguing it would have codified policies created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which federal courts and dozens of attorneys general suing him argue are illegal, The Center Square reported.

Allred mentions how the bill would have funded hiring “1,000 administrative personnel to help us deal with the backlog of the asylum situation,” another Biden-Harris plan that critics argue is illegal, because only federal immigration judges can adjudicate asylum cases.

Allred also notes that the Senate bill allocated funds to local communities to deal with a surge of illegal immigration. It allocated $1.4 billion to one DHS grant program to facilitate transportation, housing, and other resources for illegal border crossers, not to provide security for American citizens or expedited removal of illegal border crossers.

In a Texas Tribune interview, Allred said, “When you have a huge surge of migrants … you have to identify the crisis and respond to it with smart policy resources and have that sense of urgency.”

In the KXAN interview, Allred said, “I’ve been the most bipartisan Texan in Congress” and that “border security is about more than physical barriers” which he “voted to fund.”

According to his voting record, Allred voted against the “Protecting our Communities from Failure to Secure the Border Act,” which Texas Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez supported. Allred also voted against two resolutions “Denouncing the Biden administration’s immigration policies,” one in March and in May, which only Cuellar supported.

He also voted against the POLICE Act and against the Schools Not Shelters Act; the only Texas Democrat who supported them was Cuellar.

Cuellar was the only Texas Democrat to condemn Harris for her role in the border crisis. He and Gonzalez were the only Texas Democrats who supported a resolution “condemning the Biden border crisis and the tremendous burdens law enforcement officers face as a result.”

Allred also voted against the Spending Reduction and Border Security Act; against the Secure the Border Act; and against elementary and secondary school facilities being used “to provide shelter for aliens who are not admitted to the United States.”

He’s also touted his endorsement from NextGen America, a group that wants to abolish ICE, the agency responsible for apprehending and removing violent offenders.

The National Border Patrol Council and high-profile Texas Democrats have endorsed Cruz.