CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Former President Donald Trump descended on South Texas Saturday to make a final appeal to voters in the Lone Star State ahead of what could be a historic election for Republicans poised to take back century-long Democratic strongholds.
Throughout his more than 90 minutes at the podium, Trump returned to the issues of border security and immigration over and over again — top issues on the minds of voters in South Texas, where three Hispanic Republican women are in tight races to win border districts that have never gone to a conservative.
“Since the end of the Trump administration, the drug cartels have seen their revenues skyrocket by an astounding 2,500%. If they were a Wall Street company, their stock would be through the roof from $500 million to last year, $13 billion in one year,” Trump told several thousand attendees at a rally in the small town of Robstown, just west of Gulf Coast city Corpus Christi.
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Standing just over 100 miles north of the international border, Trump told story after story of American citizens who had been victims of horrendous crimes committed by people who were illegally residing in the United States. He chastised Democrats, including New York Attorney General Leticia James, for being weak when it came to prosecuting criminals.
Trump blamed rising crime across the country on the prevalence of illicit drugs nationwide, which he attributed to vulnerabilities at the southern border that transnational criminal organizations had been able to penetrate.
“A lot of the crime that we have — the robberies and all of the different things — they are caused by drugs,” said Trump. “You end that, you end the drug situation coming into your country. You’ll end 75-80% of the crime coming into America.”
His remarks came on the heels of a late night release of data from the Biden administration less than 24 hours earlier that revealed the declining situation at the border.
Over the past year, 2,378,944 noncitizens were encountered trying to enter the United States without permission at the southern border — the highest number ever recorded. The number had dropped to the lowest year on record in 45 years early on in the Trump administration, but began rising later on in his tenure.
“I think we can all agree President Trump was one badass president,” said guest speaker Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Well over 1 million people have been released from Border Patrol custody into the interior of the U.S., rather than being detained through court proceedings or returned to countries of origin.
Trump’s appearance in Texas comes two days before early voting commences. In the nearby Rio Grande Valley region, he picked up votes from the 2016 election to the 2020 election, leading the Republican Party to push hard this cycle to convert the Hispanic Democratic voters with Latina Republican candidates.
The “Triple Threat” — Rep. Mayra Flores of the 34th Congressional District, Monica De La Cruz of the 15th, and Cassy Garcia of the 28th — share Trump’s policy views and are trying to appeal to Hispanic Democrats who have been turned off by how progressive their party has become in recent years. None of the three women were at the rally due to prescheduled events, though they made recorded addresses to attendees before Trump took stage.
Trump has only endorsed De La Cruz of the three. His endorsement is significant given his 33-0 record backing candidates in Texas.
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Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) was absent due to a prescheduled fundraising trip to Florida. Neither of the Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, are up for re-election this year and skipped the event.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stumped for Trump and eagerly ran on stage as Trump handed out endorsements.
Trump’s appearance in Texas will also test the waters for a 2024 presidential run, which could pit him against Abbott. Attendees who spoke with the Washington Examiner at the really opposed any other Republican candidate but Trump, passing up Abbott and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
