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Interview

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Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who joined President Biden on his trip to the U.S./Mexico border over the weekend. Sir, good to have you with us.

REP. VICENTE GONZALEZ (D-TX): Good to be here.

HILL: As you know, President Biden was criticized about that trip that he didn't meet with any migrants while visiting that migrant center in El Paso. Do you believe it was a mistake for the president?

GONZALEZ: No, it was a very effective, productive day on the border for the president. He got to actually visit the border, visit how people are processed, met with Border Patrol, met with the Customs agents on our border, got to discuss detailed processes of what migrants go through and got to see what trade and drugs that are being interdicted on our border, how they're being processed. So, it was a very effective trip for the president.

Also you have to remember, Secretary Mayorkas was with us. He has traveled extensively along the border. He is very knowledgeable and he's briefing the president regularly. We -- he had three members, border members of Congress, myself and two others, with him. So, we were able to brief him on what we've been dealing with for years now.

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And I was able to talk about the Safe Zone Act, which is another proposal on top of the administration to try, to improve conditions along the border and make it a more orderly process for people who seek asylum to come to this country.

HILL: And I do want to ask you specifically about that Safe Zone Act. In terms of who was there, your fellow Texas Congressman, Tony Gonzales, a Republican, said he wasn't invited to that trip at the southern border but had asked to go. Was that a missed opportunity for President Biden?

GONZALEZ: Well, we had a lot of members that wanted to come and a lot of members -- obviously, it was limited space to come and visit, but Tony and I talked on the floor and discuss the border regularly. Listen --

HILL: Would it have helped to have a Republican there?

GONZALEZ: Republicans were there on the ground, people that we talked to.

Donald Trump used to come regularly to me border. He never invited me along. So, that just happens. But I could tell you we always work in a bipartisan way. This bill that I'm talking about, the Safe Zone Act, is a bipartisan bill, and we're going to continue reaching across the aisle and talking to our Republican friends.

HILL: So, in terms of that bill, so, currently, under current U.S. immigration law, as I understand it, a migrant has to be physically present in the U.S. or at the border if they want to claim asylum. They can't do it in an embassy or a consulate in another country. Part of the Safe Zone Act that you're proposing, as I understand it, would change that, wllowing them to apply for asylum before they get close to the southern border.

GONZALEZ: That is right.

HILL: How much support do you think you currently have in Congress for that --

GONZALEZ: We're going to have a lot of support for this bill. I had to discuss it with the president. I'm discussing it with President Giammattei in Guatemala this next week. And what it does, it creates this zone in Guatemala as the first pilot program for migrants who are coming south of the border to come up and process at that juncture, very similar to what they do in my district. This would be done in partnership with other countries, have them process their asylum claim 1,500 miles from the southern border. It does two things. It takes the pressure off our border, one, and allows Border Patrol and law enforcement to do what their job and it takes the cartel element out of it as well.

These migrants that show up to my border are paying between $6,000 and $8,000 a head to cartels to get to our southern border. So, cartels have made billions of dollars trafficking migrants to our southern border and we need to have a plan to eliminate that. This Safe Zone Act does just that. It is a bipartisan bill.

I have a meeting with some Republican members today to discuss it. And it is very humane for people who care about migrants. Why should we force migrants to walk 1,500 miles and pay cartels and women and children to be pillaged and go through horrible struggles that they go through if we're going to allow them in anyway under the credible first standard, which is quite a low standard? Let's do it from another place.

HILL: Well, hopefully, we look forward to an update after that meeting that you'll have later today with Republicans. So, feel free to fill us in.

We're getting tight a little tight on time, but as you know, immigration is an incredibly broad problem. It is also, in some ways, perhaps better politically for lawmakers not to work on solving this issue.

GONZALEZ: Well, some people --

HILL: Well, let me ask you, though. Is there one -- do you believe that there is one point, whether it is your Safe Zones Act or something else, is there one item in this broad list, this -- of potential action items that fall under immigration, that you could see some real bipartisan movement on in this Congress?

GONZALEZ: Well, if you look at the proposals that Biden has just from a policy perspective and how we're going to deal with migrants, one of them on the list is that anybody who seeks asylum in our country who transited through another safe country must ask for asylum there.

I've been saying this for years. I had Eastern Europeans that were in Paris and Rome and Madrid before they got to my place. They had many other safe countries to ask for asylum. People coming north stop in Costa Rica and Panama, Mexico, which is somehow still considered a safe country, other places where they could ask for asylum and they should be required to do so.

HILL: So, you believe that that particular point could have broad bipartisan support?

GONZALEZ: I really do. It makes sense. If we don't make this political, we can fix it. This -- what is happening on the border is not a Democratic or a Republican problem. It is an American problem that requires all of us to engage in a meaningful way and resolve it.

HILL: Listen, they are great points. I wish you great luck in not making it political. Because you're right, it is an issue that needs to be dealt with for all Americans.

Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, I appreciate you joining us this morning and we look forward to that update. Thank you.

GONZALEZ: Absolutely. Thank you.

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