Texas Republicans are pointing to the recent apprehensions of convicted sex criminals at the southern border as an example of the kind of criminal element they believe are taking advantage of President Biden's immigration policies.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced on Wednesday the apprehension of multiple convicted "sexual predators" that were caught trying to illegally enter America through the southern border.
Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector captured three convicted sexual predators — Jose Estuardo Martinez, Tony Canales-Velasquez and an unnamed Mexican national — between Monday and Wednesday of this week, the agency announced in a press release.
Martinez was apprehended in Brownsville, Texas, after allegedly entering the country illegally. Agents ran his records and found that Martinez was a convicted child molester, according to CBP.
Martinez was sentenced to eight years probation after he was "arrested in 2013 for indecency with a child/sexual contact by the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office in Sulphur Springs, Texas," according to CBP.
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The unnamed Mexican national apprehended by CBP in Falfurrias, Texas, just "hours" after Martinez was found guilty of committing a 2015 rape in Sandy Springs, Georgia and was given 20 years in prison. He only served five, according to CBP.
"At the station, the subject’s criminal history revealed an arrest in 2015 for rape by the Sandy Springs Police Department in Sandy Springs, Georgia," the CBP press release noted. "The individual was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 20 years confinement, of which he served 5 years."
Two days later on Wednesday, CBP arrested nine illegal aliens in Fronton, Texas, and discovered that one of them, Canales-Velasquez, was also a convicted child sex offender.
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"During processing, agents discovered that one of the individuals identified as Canales-Velasquez, Tony, a Honduran national, had a prior arrest by the Potter County Sheriff’s Office in Amarillo, Texas, for indecency with a child. Canales was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to five years probation.
Rep. Troy Nehls, who represents Texas’ 22nd Congressional District, told Fox News that he was happy to see the sex offenders "taken off the streets" but stressed that Americans should be worried about the criminals getting away with entering the country illegally.
"I’m glad to see these predators taken off the streets but what should concern all Americans are the additional criminal illegal immigrants crossing our southern border undetected because of the mass migration at our southern border," said Nehls.
"Biden is complicit in the human trafficking and drug trafficking profiting from his reckless open border policies, and it’ll ultimately be on law enforcement and local communities to clean up this Biden Border Crisis," the Texas congressman added.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, also weighed in on the apprehensions, telling Fox News that the Biden administration refuses to "recognize" the crisis at the border and brought up his experience travelling to the southern border on Monday.
"Our border is a mess, yet the Biden administration refuses to recognize it. Yesterday, DHS Secretary Mayorkas told us that the border is ‘secure.’ It is not," said Pfluger. "I traveled to the border on Monday to survey the border patrol facilities. I saw firsthand the deficiencies in tools and resources our brave agents are dealing with to process and care for the thousands of people coming across our border illegally."
"If we really cared about children, we would be looking at the policies that are incentivizing the drug called cartels, the traffickers, the coyotes that are bringing them across and exploiting them in every way," continued Pfluger. "Even more, many are crossing wish our nation harm — including individuals that have been apprehended crossing the border and later identified on the terror watch list."
When asked for a response to the apprehensions, the office of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, pointed Fox News to his comments from a recent television interview, where the senator said that the children being brought into America illegally were being "brought in by human traffickers."
"These traffickers are violent criminal cartels. They are subjecting these children to physical abuse, to sexual abuse. No one who cares about humanity, who cares about compassion would want little boys and little girls in the custody of human traffickers," said Cruz.
"That's what the Biden administration is doing," added Cruz. "And they refuse to even acknowledge it's a crisis as it gets worse and worse and worse."
"It’s a heartbreaking disaster in every sense of the word, and must be addressed immediately," added the Texan congressman.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas — who represents Falfurrias in Congress — did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment about the apprehensions.
The CBP apprehensions come as the Biden administration has struggled to keep control over the growing crisis at the border.
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It was recently revealed that the CBP allowed the majority of migrant families caught trying to cross the border illegally to enter the United States pending their potential removal through Title 8.
Harlingen, Texas, Mayor Chris Boswell told "America Reports" on Wednesday that the border crisis has been "overwhelming" communities in Texas.
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