Gonzales: Migrants waiting for ‘cooler part of the year’ to cross border 

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said Sunday the lower number of border crossings into the United States is partly due to the migrants waiting until the cooler part of the year to cross.

When asked by CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face The Nation” if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary deserve some credit for low numbers, Gonzales said, “They do deserve some credit for the numbers being down. But there’s a lot of reasons for that. It’s also 115 degrees in Texas right now. So…a lot of people are waiting until a cooler part of the year to come over.” 

DHS said border encounters dropped 30 percent in June from the month prior, marking the lowest number of border encounters since President Biden’s first full month in office. 

“The administration is doing very little, nothing to focus on legal immigration,” Gonzales said on Sunday when asked about if the Biden administration deserves any credit for the numbers. “That’s why I saw we got to stop waiting on the president. It has to be Congress that leads and it has to be the rank and file that come together.” 

Gonzales, who represents a large border district in Texas, has been very vocal on the need for immigration reform. 

“There’s no talk of legal immigration,” he said. “There’s no talk of increasing legal pathways. It’s only what happens when people are here illegally. Do we push them in the river? Do we let them through? Do we give them this one app where they go straight to it?” 

“I’d much rather see the administration, instead of focusing on illegal immigration, because right now nine out of 10 people that claim asylum aren’t going to get asylum,” Gonzales added.