Former El Paso city council member: Judge's refusal to admit migrant invasion is 'irresponsible'
Former El Paso City Council member Claudia Rodriguez reacts to statements from a judge during House hearing that there is no border invasion and concerns over the crisis are 'racist.'
A former El Paso city councilwoman warned the effects of the border crisis in her community are "unprecedented" after a local judge told House lawmakers it's "racist" to characterize the border crisis as an "invasion" and denied the border is "open."
Claudia Rodriguez called Democrat El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego's Capitol Hill testimony "irresponsible" on "Fox & Friends First" Friday and urged him to issue an apology to her community and Border Patrol.
"We are having migrants steal cars and there are all sorts of chases happening in El Paso. People are running across our highways. They're getting run over. They're being killed. I mean, they're sleeping on our streets. This is all stuff that was happening, and for him to say that it's not the result of an open border policy is completely false," she said.
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Fox News witnessed around 200 migrants on a street near a greyhound bus in El Paso, Texas, in December (Fox News)
Rodriguez said she's spent hours talking to Venezuelan migrants and they've all told her the "same exact thing" about why they came to the U.S.
"They were coming because President Biden told them to come, they were coming for economic reasons, for economic opportunities. They were all admitting to me, 'We're here illegally,'" Rodriguez said.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy slammed the judge Wednesday for his remarks on the border crisis during a heated House Judiciary Committee hearing.
"He vilified the Border Patrol by calling them racist," Rodriguez said of the testimony.
"I think the judge owes the people, the Border Patrol agents in El Paso an apology."
In his opening remarks to the committee, Samaniego denied there was a threat to the El Paso community and suggested anyone claiming otherwise had ulterior motives.
"There is no invasion of migrants in our community. Nor are their hoards of undocumented immigrants committing crimes against citizens or causing havoc in our community," Samaniego said. "Claiming this continues a false, racist narrative against individuals to perpetuate violence that the El Paso community is all too familiar with."
The last line referred to 2019’s mass shooting in El Paso, when a lone gunman opened fire at a Walmart and killed nearly two dozen people. Authorities said the shooter, Patrick Crusius admitted that he was targeting Mexicans.
Samaniego later pushed back on Roy's criticism, saying that his comments during the hearing were in no way meant to insinuate "that it was a racist act to secure the border."
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He clarified in a statement to Fox News Digital that "classifying migrants into a category of criminals who are responsible for the majority of drug trafficking is what I believe to be racist narratives that can lead to targeting migrants or even our community as was the case on [Aug. 3, 2019] with respect to the Walmart tragedy."
"Also, I would like to clarify that my definition of invasion is more what took place on our US Capitol on January 6th," he added.
Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report
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