Democrat Congressman Demands Higher Asylum Standards, ‘Expedited Removals’

During a Wednesday interview, Rep. Vincente Gonzalez (D-TX) called on his fellow Democrats to be stronger on illegal immigration, while also advocating for raising the fear level for asylum claims at the southern border and implementing a process for “expedited” hearings and removals for asylum claims.

Gonzalez made the comments during an appearance on “CNN News Central,” where he discussed the ongoing border crisis and the steps he believes the government needs to take to combat the issue.

The Democrat congressman began the discussion by claiming that the actions taken by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) have not worked. Abbott has taken a lot of steps to fight the border crisis in his state, though he has been handicapped by numerous legal challenges against his methods by the Biden administration, as well as Texas’ inability to enforce federal immigration laws. The Republican governor has erected border barriers, shipped illegal aliens away from his state and into “sanctuary cities” and even recently enacted laws that criminalize illegal immigration at a state level.

Despite these actions, Gonzalez claims that Abbott’s actions aren’t working, and instead suggested other methods to crack down on illegal immigration.

“We need ideas of processing migrants further away from the border,” the Democrat congressman said. “We need to raise the critical fear standard on the border. We need to have expedited hearings and expedited removals.”

“We need to crack down on the southern border and Democrats need to do it,” Gonzalez added. “And I think there [are] a lot of places where we can create good policy that’s effective and it’s humane.”

He then made false claims about former President Donald Trump’s border policies — claiming that families were ripped apart with his separation policy that was designed to protect children from human traffickers — and proposed alternatives to change the immigration process.

“We’re not going to rip children out of mother’s arms and separate families the way President Trump did, but we need to have law and order on the border and we need to have an orderly process for people to migrate into this country,” Gonzalez said. “And I’ve been proposing an idea called the Safe Zone[s] Act, which develops zones in Guatemala and Panama and maybe Colombia for migrants to go and [be processed] at that juncture.”

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