With election season in full swing, six candidates hoping to be the next representative for U.S. District 15 participated in a candidate forum where they discussed a wide range of issues such as immigration, marijuana, and the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol last year.
The participants of Tuesday’s forum, which was hosted by Futuro RGV, included the candidates running for the Democratic nomination in the March Primary election.
Those candidates are Michelle Vallejo, Eliza Alvarado, Julio Garcia, John Villarreal Rigney, Vanessa Stephanie Tijerina and Ruben Ramirez.
When asked what they saw as the region’s biggest asset and concern, Vallejo, an entrepreneur backed by the progressive LUPE Votes, said she saw the border as the area’s biggest asset, calling it a fusing place of ideas, culture and innovation.
The biggest concern, she said, was “getting distracted of this fact” and being ignored by D.C. and Austin, though she said she would not allow that to happen, if elected.
Alvarado, director of Partnerships and Career Pathways at the Region One Education Service Center, said the biggest asset was the proximity to the border “which provides an economic engine that promotes trade and commerce and creates jobs while attracting companies to this region.”
She added, “This asset has allowed us to grow even during the uncertain times of the pandemic.”
The biggest concern, she said, is the area’s continued lack of political power at the federal and state level.
“I’m tired of the nation seeing us as just a region with an immigration problem and our state continues to reduce our voice through redistricting and voter suppression,” Alvarado said, pledging to work for voter rights.
Garza, a former precinct chair for the Hidalgo County Democratic Party, said the biggest asset was the sense of community while the biggest concern, in his view, was COVID-19.
“If elected to Congress, I would push for vaccine mandates and a better healthcare system,” he said.
Villarreal Rigney, an attorney and small business owner, saw the relationship with Mexico as the greatest asset.
“The border we have with Mexico and the millions of dollars of trade and incoming produce we have every year is crucial to our economy,” he said. “Our District 15 is a pipeline to feed our nation.”
The biggest concern, he said, was how to assist businesses and families get back to work following the shutdown of the border because of COVID-19.
“We need to make sure that our businesses and our families can thrive in this economy,” he said.
Tijerina, a nurse who previously ran for District 15 in 2016, said the biggest asset of any community are children.
“That’s our single biggest asset and if we do not promote the best outcomes for those children, then we are forsaking our own futures,” she said.
Ramirez, an attorney and military veteran saw “South Texas family values” of hard work, family and community as the area’s biggest asset. He said the biggest concern was that too many families were struggling.
When it came to whether they supported a path to citizenship for those currently living in the U.S. undocumented, Alvarado said she supported it.
She said the district had a workforce shortage and that part of alleviating it was working on comprehensive immigration reform.
Garza said they needed to grant citizenship to individuals who were brought to the country when they were children, those also known as Dreamers.
“They’ve lived here their entire life, we’ve already invested in them,” he said. “I feel it’s horrible the way we’re holding them in limbo like this and they need direct citizenship right away.”
He added that he agreed with Alvarado that amnesty would help alleviate the labor shortage.
Villarreal Rigney said he would support a pathway for people who are in Mexico and want to come to the U.S. and “be productive members of our economy.”
However, he saw cartels as a problem and that the pathway to citizenship had to include border security.
“We don’t want cartels and drugs running across our border freely so we need to create a pathway so that we don’t have people trying to cross the river because they feel like that’s the only way,” he said. “We want them to come to our bridge, knock on our door, tell us ‘here’s who I am,’ we vet them to make sure they’re good, and we let them come to work.”
Tijerina called for a humane way to allow people to come into the U.S. and to earn citizenship.
“We need to process them,” she said. “They are asylum seekers, not illegals.”
Ramirez said he supported citizenship for Dreamers but said the way to achieve that had to be bipartisan.
“It would have to be bipartisan because what happens is you get extremes on both sides where you get one party going pushing things through, it gets undone and then you get the other side doing the same thing where they undo it and then they put their version,” he said. “We need lasting change so it would look bipartisan … and it should be done in a humane way.”
As for Vallejo, she said the ability to seek asylum was a human right.
“We must make sure that our community, our district, is an example, not just to Texas, not just to the country, but to the world of how to be a border that embraces community, that embraces innovation, that is rooted from the solutions that are coming from home,” she said. “It’s important that we get to Congress and we make sure that they know what we need here and that is how we’re going to get our pathway to citizenship.”
When it came to the attack on the capitol last year by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, the candidates all agreed in describing it as an attack on democracy.
Garza said he didn’t think the government had done enough to hold extremists and insurrectionists accountable, believing they should be jailed.
“In Congress, I would hold them accountable and really work for voting rights because that’s how we’ll keep them in their place,” he said.
Villarreal Rigney called the events of that day as a shame on the country and said they shouldn’t stand for that kind of behavior.
Tijerina called it the most, if not, one of the biggest acts of domestic terrorism the country had ever experienced, at least in modern times.
She added the event was enabled by hateful rhetoric and hate speech that she believed is not regulated as it should be.
Ramirez said it was an attack on the foundation of what made the country great and that, as a veteran, the events of that day made him sick to his stomach.
“It felt like a gut-punch, it really did,” he said.
To Vallejo, it was an example of why they needed to stand up and defend democracy.
“It is important that all of us know that that is a reflection of where our democracy is right now,” Vallejo said. “It is in turmoil and that’s why it is important for all of us to stand up and represent what true democracy could be and what it means to represent our country to the rest of the world.”
To Alvarado, the events of that day were reminiscent of 9/11.
“For me, not having leadership stand up and say, ‘this is not OK,’ was a problem,” she said. “What I would say is we can do better. We can definitely do better and our country is better and we need to work together in a bipartisan way so this doesn’t happen again.”
The six candidates are running to replace current U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez who switched districts after the boundaries were redrawn to become more favorable to Republicans. Gonzalez is, instead, running for District 34.
The Republican candidates for District 15 will participate in a candidate forum on Jan. 20.
