Texas representative on southern border, Uvalde and gun violence
WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Representative Tony Gonzales (R-TX) spoke with Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan Sunday about the southern border.
Gonzales says while the number of crossing has been down in the past few months, "it doesn't have to do with what Joe Biden has done," adding:
"We're on pace for 1.3 million people to come over illegally. The numbers are down. The explanation is Mexico. A lot of people don't realize Mexico has an election next month for this presidency, nine governorships and its Congress. So, in many cases, those that are running on security platform are keeping the numbers down, but the cartels are like companies. So, they're taking a loss in Q1 and Q2 in order to increase the volume in Q3 and Q4. So...in many ways, this is just Mexico carrying Biden a couple rounds. Now, if Joe Biden wants to secure this thing, long term, I think he needs to stop looking at the Senate for a solution and look to the House."
When asked what he meant by that, Gonzales said, "The president has not had any real conversations with anyone on the, anyone in the House. The Senate. Yes, they've sat down, they've had these conversations, but in the House, they've given no oxygen to it."
During the interview, Gonzales talked about changes in his district two years after the school shooting at Robb Elementary.
"It's still healing. It's still very raw, two years later, in many cases, you're constantly re-victimized over and over again. The other part of it, too, is a lot has changed, a lot hasn't changed. Everyone talks about Robb, you know what happened at Robb, everyone talks about the new elementary school, Uvalde elementary school. But there's nine other schools in Uvalde that in many cases are still in the same situation. Yeah, yeah they put some fencing up. But how do we protect our kids long term? And one of the things that I did...I held a bipartisan safety...Bipartisan School Safety Caucus, where we brought all these different partners together to have discussions on how we fix things. I have the superintendent of Uvalde, I have the new police chief of Uvalde. There's a lot of changes happening in Uvalde. One of the things that came out of that was $10 million for school safety, not just for Robb and Uvalde elementary school, but all the other elementary schools as well."
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX)
Brennan and Gonzales talked about the latter's runoff election, with the former asking if Gonzales is facing some challenges because of the work he did following the Uvalde shooting, to which Gonzales said:
"You cannot be afraid to do what you think is right. You're never gonna get it perfect. But you have to fight for the things that are important to us. Keeping our kids safe from being murdered from crazy people. That should be important to all of us. It shouldn't just be talking points. We shouldn't just blame someone else. We shouldn't just talk about mental health. We should actually do something about it to keep us safe. The Safer Community Act has prevented over 500 school shootings from happening. But that is only the start; we have to do much, much more. Part of that is why isn't there a national standard for school safety? Why are all the schools in a silo when it comes to fighting some of these things? And we have to give them the resources. We passed this bill, but a lot of the money has not made it back to the schools. I'm not afraid of that vote. I'm not afraid of this runoff. I ran very hard in order to win this election. And I'll keep delivering for my district."
