Trump’s emergency move puts border hawks Roy, Crenshaw in tight spot

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston. U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston. Photo: Michael Wyke, Houston Chronicle / Contributor Photo: Michael Wyke, Houston Chronicle / Contributor Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Trump’s emergency move puts border hawks Roy, Crenshaw in tight spot 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

About two weeks before President Donald Trump signed a spending bill without funding for his long-promised border wall, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw was standing along a stretch of fencing in downtown Brownsville, pitching his case for more physical barriers.

Far fewer illegal crossings occur in Brownsville, Crenshaw noted, than in nearby McAllen, which is largely unfenced and where data suggests most of the Rio Grande Valley sector’s illegal crossings occur.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot of analysis here to figure out why this is working,” said Crenshaw, a Houston-area Republican.

Crenshaw and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a fellow Republican who represents a district running from Austin to San Antonio, have emerged as arguably the loudest advocates for a wall among their freshman class. They have sparred with Democrats on social media, made the rounds on national TV and toured the border, where Crenshaw produced a documentary-style video of his findings.

Amid Trump’s stream-of-consciousness and sometimes factually erroneous pro-wall arguments, Crenshaw and Roy have sought to present a more sophisticated case, contending that a wall is just one part of the solution to improve border security. Unlike Trump, they have focused not on the violent crime rate in border towns, which are safer than most cities their size, but on the rate at which people are apprehended for illegally crossing the border.

Since Trump signed the $333 billion spending bill that provides only 55 miles of “pedestrian fencing,” however, congressional Republicans, stuck in the House minority, are all but relegated to the sidelines — raising a question for immigration hardliners such as Crenshaw and Roy, who voted against the legislation: Now what?

Though House Republicans still may propose piecemeal border-focused legislation, Democrats are unlikely to take up such proposals. The Democrats contend that walls are ineffective because most illegal drugs flow through ports of entry, and that Trump and Republicans have manufactured an immigration crisis amid historically low levels of arrests along the border.

Some Republicans agree: U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a Helotes Republican who represents a bigger chunk of the border than any House member, has called Trump’s border crisis a “myth.”

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Hurd also has said he does not support Trump’s national emergency declaration that will allow the White House to tap other wall funding sources — especially if the president seeks to build the wall with military construction funds, one of the money pots he could dip into.

“Our government was designed for the most ultimate power, the power of the purse, to reside within Congress,” Hurd said on Face the Nation. “And we shouldn't have an executive — I don't care if it's Republican or Democrat — that tries to get around Congress with this national emergency declaration.”

Roy, unsure about the legality of Trump’s national emergency declaration, is now working with like-minded Republicans, including Florida Rep. Mark Green, to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Doing so would enhance penalties for people who support cartels and allow the government to freeze cartel-linked assets.

More broadly, Roy hopes to tighten asylum laws and amend a 1997 consent decree that bars the government from detaining minors accompanied by parents for more than 20 days. Roy argues those factors incentivize migrant families to illegally cross the border.

"Right now, it's just a free-for-all,” Roy said. “And now you've got this flow coming across, and the cartels know it. They're exploiting that free-for-all, profiting on the back of it, endangering migrants.”

‘Wrestling’ with Trump’s emergency declaration

Roy’s policy objectives appear unlikely to gain much traction under a Democratic-majority House, though the Trump administration has recently begun forcing asylum seekers at the San Diego port of entry to wait in Mexico - a practice that officials intend to expand to Texas.

Crenshaw, meanwhile, said he reluctantly voted against the spending bill, despite its “many examples of good-faith compromises,” saying it would not adequately stem the tide of illegal border crossings.

Border Patrol caught about 397,000 migrants illegally crossing the border in the 2018 fiscal year — more than in 2017, generally in line with recent totals and far lower than historic levels. Migrant families are requesting asylum at a record rate, however, with many fleeing gang violence in Central America.

As for Trump’s emergency declaration, Crenshaw told the Independent Review Journal, a conservative news site, that he is “wary of the precedent it sets,” though he appeared broadly supportive, expressing hope that Trump’s move would “start to address the problems at our border.”

Roy, a critic of former president Barack Obama’s immigration policies, played a key role as Attorney General Ken Paxton’s top assistant in securing a 2015 injunction on a program that granted deferred action status to undocumented parents of legal residents.

Four years later, Roy said he is weighing “as objectively as is humanly possible” whether Trump’s action is constitutional and legal.

“I am wrestling with it every bit as much as I did as an antagonist to the policy in Obama's world and despite my desire to have a strong border,” Roy said. He added, “I very much want to ensure that the president is not overreaching.”

On Friday, House Democrats led by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, filed a resolution aiming to block Trump’s emergency declaration. The House has drawn the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Friday the House will vote on the measure Tuesday.

Instead of a physical wall, Republican Rep. Hurd has proposed to install sensors, radar, fiber optics, drones and other mechanisms to enforce a “smart wall,” which he says would cost far less.

Asked on Twitter about Hurd’s opposition to a border wall opposition, Crenshaw said his colleague’s district “covers sectors of the border with natural barricades and very little traffic.”

“I would urge Will to think of the border in holistic terms instead of just his district,” Crenshaw said. “The President’s plan only calls for fencing where [border patrol] has identified a need. Not the whole border.”

Hurd, whose district spans more than 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, has continued in recent interviews to oppose the idea of physical barriers, though his call for a mix of solutions echoes those of Crenshaw and Roy.

Even Congress’ most vociferous border wall backers reserve praise for Hurd, perhaps understanding that support for a wall would have surely cost him re-election last year. Roy said he speaks with Hurd frequently and has “enormous respect” for his perspective on border matters.

“Reasonable people can come to different conclusions, and Will and I will continue to have debate and discussion about that,” Roy said. “I think there's a lot more agreement than disagreement.”

For now, all three Republicans appear likely to remain prominent figures in the ongoing border debate as Trump’s emergency declaration is litigated in court.