FAIR Hosts a Border Discussion with Texas Senator Ted Cruz

On September 18, FAIR collaborated with the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) in Washington, D.C., to host a discussion with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) about the state of our borders and the dangers posed by open-borders policies. The event was attended by more than 100 senior congressional staffers and experts from outside organizations.

The 40-minute forum was hosted by FAIR’s executive director, Julie Kirchner. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, from the Biden-Harris administration’s deliberate efforts to undermine our border security and immigration laws, such as mass catch-and-release policies, to measures that can be taken now to put an end to the crisis, such as enacting strong border security legislation like H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act.

During the course of the discussion, Sen. Cruz clearly set forth the policies adopted and implemented by the current administration that are to blame for the current crisis. Furthermore, his analysis left no doubt that the border and illegal immigration crises the nation faces are by design, not due to any external circumstances beyond the control of the president and the people he has appointed to key positions in his administration. To prove his point, Sen. Cruz enumerated numerous steps that the administration could have taken at any point – even now – to address the dangers posed by its policies.

Of special concern to the senator are the many Americans who have fallen victim to violent criminals who have been allowed to enter, or been released into the United States under the Biden-Harris administration. As he noted passionately, every one of the Americans who has been brutally victimized by these criminals represents an avoidable tragedy, if only the administration had fulfilled its duties to enforce our immigration laws, and sanctuary jurisdictions had not released deportable criminal aliens from custody after having arrested them for other offenses.

Sen. Cruz spotlighted his own legislation, the Justice for Jocelyn Act, named for Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old Houston girl who was brutally raped and strangled this past June. Her alleged assailants were both Venezuelan illegal aliens who were apprehended after entering the United States illegally earlier in 2024. However, both men were released with only Notices to Appear in court at some future date, even though thousands of detention beds were available to hold them.

Cruz’s bill, which FAIR has endorsed, would mandate that all detention beds be filled and all available options to detain illegal aliens are exhausted before illegal aliens are released on Alternatives to Detention. The bill also requires that aliens who are released into the country wear 24-hour ankle monitors with strict curfews mandating that they be in their residences between the hours of 10pm and 5am.

The conversation between FAIR and Sen. Cruz provides a clear road map for this and future administrations to follow if they actually want to secure our borders and safeguard the safety and interests of the American public. It also illustrates FAIR’s significant influence in immigration policy matters with key members of Congress.