Democratic Rep. Colin Allred of Texas, who is running for the Senate in 2024 and has previously demanded lenient immigration policies, vowed to “tear down” walls along the U.S. border with Mexico that he deemed as “racist,” according to video footage reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Allred announced his candidacy on May 3 for Texas’ Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who is running for re-election to a third term.
A video reviewed by the DCNF shows Allred calling a wall along the southern border a “racist wall” that his generation would attempt to “tear down” in Texas, which has faced a massive influx of illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande River from Mexico in recent years.
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“I’ll tell you what, if they build that racist wall, my generation is the one that will tear it down. We are not going to have a wall in this country,” Allred said at a Young Progressive Christians of Dallas event in 2018, according to a video of the event on YouTube. At the time, Allred was running for Congress in Texas’ 32nd congressional district, a race he later won that year.
Allred also called a border wall “racist” at a separate event, the Big East Forum, in 2018.
“I wanna briefly talk about this racist wall. The symbol of this country cannot be a fence with barbed wire on top of it. It has to remain the Statute of Liberty. I’ll tell you what. If they build that wall, my generation will be the one that tears it down. We will not have this in this country. We will not have this wall in our country. We are not going to waste billions of dollars on a racist campaign promise and we are not going to turn the symbol of this country into a wall with barbed wire on top of it,” he said.
Allred has previously articulated left-wing policy views on immigration and border security. He supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and said that a wall along the southern border would be a “waste of money,” according to the Texas Standard.
However, following the Biden administration’s phasing out of Title 42 authority to expel migrants, Allred said that the administration had “fallen short” on the border and called for the deployment of more agents to stop the trafficking of fentanyl. He also said that illegal immigrants should be authorized to work in the United States while their claims of asylum are processed.
Allred’s campaign website does not feature any policy regarding immigration or border security. Two press releases related to immigration express his support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides benefits to illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as children, as well as criticize his opponent, Cruz, for visiting the Rio Grande Valley, claiming that he was using the border as a “political prop.”
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Over 2.2 million foreign nationals have crossed the southern border illegally in 2023, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with a majority crossing into Texas — the U.S. state with the largest land border with Mexico. Republicans have repeatedly blamed the Biden administration for the influx, pointing to its rescinding of restrictive policies by the Trump administration.
Texas has issued a disaster declaration over the influx of illegal immigrants as well as designated the phenomenon an “invasion,” according to state papers signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas. Under the aegis of “Operation Lone Star,” Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to the state’s international border with Mexico and has placed barbed wire along the banks of the Rio Grande as well as buoy barriers in the river, which is the subject of a federal lawsuit against the state.
Allred and Cruz’s campaigns did not respond to a request for comment.
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