Cruz challenger Colin Allred votes to defund Texas border program as illegal crossings surge
October 02, 2023 05:54 PM
Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) was one of the House Democrats who voted to prohibit federal funds from being used for Texas’s Operation Lone Star as the surge at the southern border continues.
Allred, one of the Democrats challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his seat in 2024, voted in favor of an amendment last week to an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which would have prohibited federal funds from being used toward the state’s border and immigration enforcement program.
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Operation Lone Star, a program spearheaded by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) in March 2021 to combat illegal immigration into the state, has led to more than 470,100 illegal immigrant apprehensions, according to the state.
The amendment to block funds from going to the program failed 211-220, with all Democrats, except Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) voting for it. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only Republican to vote for the amendment on Wednesday.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Philip Letsou, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, claims the vote shows Allred will not allow Texas to get “the funding it needs to secure the border.”
“Texas’s southern border is being overwhelmed by an historic influx of migrants but Colin Allred refuses to break with DC Democrats to give Texas the funding it needs to secure the border. If Allred were smart, he’d drop out now and run again for his safe Democrat seat in the House.” Letsou said in a statement.
When asked for comment, Allred’s campaign pointed to comments the congressman made at the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival last month, where he accused Cruz of not working on a bipartisan solution and said that securing the border “does not have to be done in a barbaric way.”
“What we are seeing, particularly from our governor, I think is terrible, but also not reflective of who we are and ineffective, which is maybe most important if we’re talking about how we’re actually gonna deal with this. Securing the border, the components around that are that you take some of the pressure off of our [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] agents — who are having to do so much processing — and you let them do what they should be doing, which is securing the border,” Allred said.
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Allred is one of several Democrats looking to unseat Cruz in 2024, along with Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez and others. Cruz fought off a strong challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018 and says he is taking 2024 “deadly serious.”
Cruz’s Senate seat is rated as “likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report, making it the most vulnerable Republican seat alongside Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) seat in the Sunshine State, but neither is close to becoming a “toss-up,” according to the outlet.