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That image says everything about who we are as a country. We don't give up. We show up with heart and determination. Democrats, it's your turn. That trust has now been placed in you. And it's time to show up. It's time to pass immigration reform. It's time to honor Lorenzo Sagado by legalizing him and all our maestros and bring them all out of the shadows. Yeah. It's time to end the cruelty of Steven Miller and the Trump administration and replace it with fairness and common sense. It's time to stop deporting the hardworking, skilled people who build our homes, care for our guests, and grow our food.
It's time to welcome a new wave of leaders who believe in the worth of every human life. A peaceful society can only exist when we all believe that every life is sacred. That is how we form a more perfect union. It's time to restore the American dream. It's a dream we must never give up on. And it's alive and well in the real Grand Valley. That's where I'm from. That's where my boys are from. So, it's my honor to introduce the man that the people of the Texas 15th Congressional District chose decisively to write these wrongs and bring dignity back to the hardest working people this country has ever known.
He's a Theano music legend, an eighth generation Texan, a true son of our region, a blue dog Democrat who knows the best decisions are made in the middle between the 40 yard lines. And a friend who is here to remind us to Seal Sonar, my boy and my congressman Bobby Pledo. Thank you so much, Ronnie. I'd like to thank our veterans. Thank you so much for everything. All the ones that are here and all the ones that are seeing this. You know, when I first got into this race, I really wanted to get down on the ground and talk to regular folk. I didn't want to run a campaign based on commercials. And what I really got was that we used to see immigration as us and then them.
It's not. We're all the same. In the real Grand Valley, there's tons of mixed status families. Good people. They're people that we love, that we know, and we've known forever. And right now, they're afraid to go out to the grocery store. And what we're seeing is cruelty meeting corruption. If there's something that we sent a message in this last election on November 3rd is that we're tired of the cruelty. We're tired of the corruption because these for-profit prisons, what they're doing is they're profiting off of being cruel. And then they turn around and yes, contribute to Republicans. This is what's going on. We need to end that. And I'm going to say this, whoever wants to get our support in 28
has to prioritize immigration reform, PERIOD. IT IS valuable for us on the border regions where we have become a part of this community. And I tell you, I have a very good friend of mine that's right now, his wife is getting deported. He's got an American daughter. He's also a generation Texan. These immigration policies are not anti-immigrant, they're anti-American. That's right. I am married to a Mexican. My son is from a mixed status family. We need to fix this. And let me tell you, I just want to tell you I to the members that are there right now, you have my commitment to work on this tirelessly. It's so important. And uh
somebody that was not scheduled to speak, I want to introduce because she's such an important she's probably one of the biggest stars you've never heard of. She ran for Congress in Lorenzo Salas Salado's district, District 9 in Texas. She was completely underfunded. Completely. She won by a huge margin and only advertised in Spanish language media. You got that right. They spent millions and millions of dollars beating her up. And that just tells you where the sentiment is. It's my great honor to introduce to you Leticia Gutierrez, Congresswoman Electo.
My name is Leticia Gutierrez. I am Congresswoman elect for the newly redrawn Congressional District 9 and that encompasses our historic East End Seo Vario, which is a big chunk of my community. My son is also I'm a military mom. My son is currently also serving in the United States Army proudly including his mother. Um and it's sad that to hear that his battle buddies are also being their families are also being targeted because of the way that they look. And this these are our federal tax monies. We have a say as to how this money should be spent and it should not be spent on these racist policies that are continuing to target our communities. Hardworking communities
Lorenzo Salgado who was murdered in my community of Magnolia Park. That's my backyard and that is where my family lives. And Seor Lorenzo wasn't just a dad. He's everybody's dad. And we've had enough. We need to move forward. And I stand with all of my colleagues here today. Everyone sent a message. And I want to also recognize our black brothers and sisters who have stand together with us on this issue. Everybody has come together. This is a diverse group of people that have that have sent a message to Washington that we have had enough. We have to put priorities first and human rights violations are not going to be tolerated. Thank you.
Hello everyone. My name is Carlos Evardospina. For those of you who don't know me, I make content on social media. I'm the most followed Latino leader in the entire country with over two billion views over the last 28 days. So, I know what I'm talking about on this issue. And let me be very clear. I'm worried about what's happening in Washington DC right now. I see a lot of celebration and I don't know why we're celebrating. Families are still suffering. Families are still living in fear. Families are still hurting. And yes, we had made history on November 3rd, but November 3rd was just the beginning of something that should have happened many years
ago. Oh, you know, you see in the news, someone got deported after 30 years being here. Donald Trump hasn't been president for 30 years. So, what happened in those years prior to get us to where we're at today? And so, my message to Democrats is very simple. Donald Trump learned that he can lose the Latino vote very quickly. And Democrats will learn the same thing if they don't act swiftly on immigration. We see a lot about affordability about the economy. Immigration is an affordability issue. Immigration is an economic issue. When the head of household gets detained by ICE, that creates economic problems. When you own a business and your workers get
detained, that creates economic problems. When you own a business and no one shows up because they're scared of ICE, that's an economic problem. So, we need to make immigration a priority. Otherwise, it's going to be very rough in 2028. And my final message is any person who wants to be president in 2028 will have to win the Latino vote. So, you have to earn it. You have to work for it. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT, we're going to do um Q&A. Senator. Okay. And Okay. Questions. Yes.
And at the same time, his administration is saying no. Look, we're not going to negotiate in public right now. This is a very complex issue. I think everyone here has the most important thing is we want to protect as many people as possible and we want to make sure that we keep as many families as possible together. So, we're going to take all information in and then we'll make decision. We know the president goes back and forth all the time. He says one thing, does another. And so, I don't know what he defines as amnesty.
We'll wait to see that. But again, our goal is to protect families and protect millions of people uh if possible. And we're going to listen to all possibilities of that. I just wanted to add I mean I challenge the president and Mullins if he it won't change it can start today by finding one more vote on the dreamer promise act. It will protect dreamers. It protect temporary protected status folks deed folks and that does include a lot of the construction industry that the medical industry. I've heard from our medical center in Houston uh that they're losing a lot of people that work behind the scenes behind the doctors and
the nurses, the technicians and people because TPS holders are everywhere. So if they want change, we can start now. Why wait? We need one more Republican. He all he has to do is pick up the phone and tell somebody what to do because frankly they always listen. That's right. And then we can have a vote next week and go to the Senate. The book can take place over there in early December and it's done. And then we build from that. But let's do something that we can get done this year. Why wait? The time is now. That's right.
Let me uh first of all say this. Uh there is a lot of legislation ready to go. For example, your legislation won one more Republican to get on uh the dignity act. We can get that done. we can get the work done. In the appropriations where I sit, I put it in language, but as you know, the homeland appropriation is not final. I'll put language there that used to be there, but the Republicans took it out in 2017, and that is ICE will focus their resources on criminals, not think about it, not maybe focus on that, but we got to get the appropriations bill done. So, there is a lot of language that we have.
We have some rail guards and I have a list of rail guards for ICE and my intent try to do as much as we can uh for FY27. As you know, without all due respect, Senator uh the House has gotten all 12 bills. We're waiting for the Senate. We'll see how Senator Collins and Murray can do that. They had a phone call on uh on Monday. So, we're ready to go, but we got to wait uh to see what the Senate is going to do. Uh but I will say there's rail guards that we've added and my intent to come in as the incoming chairman I have a list of rail guards on ICE and detention centers got elected New York said that the midterm results delivered a mandate to Democrats for ICE do you think that rhetoric is conducive to
look uh the Democratic party has a large ideological spectrum I understand uh what they said but I would tell you this. As the incoming chairman, I'm not going to abolish ICE, but I will put Syria's rail guards on ICE. We got to put ICE the way it was before January of 2025. And we will get that done. And we will put those rail guards on that. Yeah, go ahead. Good. What was their reaction? Well, again, uh, as the senator said, I'm not going to go into all those conversations, but I have reached out, uh, on border wall exemptions. Uh, I've talked to them also on ICE just a few minutes ago. I was
talking to him because there is a young lady here, uh, uh, who is a UT graduate. Her father just got, sorry, Longhorn, sorry, Aggies, but uh, but her father just got picked up, construction worker. So, uh, we have some conversations and we I'll leave it at this without talking about it, but there I think there are some common areas so we can work this out. Uh, and we'll go as far as we can. Uh, this I'm ranking member, but next year I get to write the bill with the input of all these members here and it's going to be a very different bill from uh, this coming year. we're we're not going to go into any details.
The White House options from his own party. I mean, what does that signal to you about appetite from Republicans for negotiation. Yeah, let's get someone from the house first. Yeah, let me uh Yeah, look, I'm very familiar with Jim Jordan. Uh I've been working on H2B visas, H2A visas. We've been able to get some of that movement in the uh Homelander Propes. Uh and you're right, you know, we got to get some input from the uh oversight committee and he has blocked that. I understand that he has blocked that. But with a majority uh we'll overcome that and get it done. But there is you know the legislation that was mentioned in
homeland there is so much work that we uh need to do. Uh my focus will be in January to make sure that we put rogue arts on ICE. Uh number one put it the way it was before 2025, January 2025. But then I want to focus on USCIS. Uh people that want to come in the right way. I want to focus on trade. A lot of people focus on Border Patrol and I support Border Patrol. Republicans uh put a focus on Border Patrol. I'll uh I'll support them. But how about the men and women in blue? Trade, tourism to make sure that we create more jobs. And we got to get this trade agreement between the US, Mexico, and Canada done and get rid of the tariffs so we can lower prices.
Democrats can do that. Well, look, beyond that, what can the president do right now? If he's talking about immigration reform, he's talking about being too harsh. The first thing you could do to show goodwill is to shut down these warehouses, the detention centers. Right? the president, if the president says that ICE is being too harsh, he's in charge of ICE right now, he could say, ICE, I want you to target only hardened criminals. I want you only to go after the people that have, you know, felony warrants on this is all within his power, right? So, yes, we're going to have a great chairman coming in that's going to take care of the appropriations. We're going to try to find any which way to pen in uh the
outrageous things that have happened with ICE, but the president is serious about this. He says he's learned his lesson that he was too harsh. then prove it by stopping these massive detention centers that try they're going to try to open up. Um thank you. We'll um thank you all very much. Our speakers can do one ones and as everybody have heard the elections and the powerful message. Let's fix this in 26. We need one more Republican on dream and promise and let's legalize our long-term workers. Thank you all very much. We're going to do a photo with all the speakers. So if we could just I'm sorry. We could just going to do one quick photo.
Speakers. One quick photo. One quick All right. Right here. One quick photo. Senator. Where's Where are you? Hey, thank you for that.
