Rep. Tony Gonzales to host House Democrat after GOP visit to border

EXCLUSIVE — Just days after more than five dozen House Republicans visited the border, one Democrat is following suit and will travel to Eagle Pass, Texas, for a solo tour before the week’s end, the Washington Examiner has learned.

Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) will meet with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district runs along 800 miles of the 2,000-mile border and is home to the epicenter of the Biden-era immigration crisis, Gonzales confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Thursday.

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The trip will be the second to the border for Davis, according to local news outlet WITN.

Gonzales hosted 64 GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in Eagle Pass on Wednesday. During a press conference, government data obtained by the Washington Examiner in December revealed that regional Border Patrol facilities had approximately 6,000 immigrants in custody at one time, most of whom had crossed into Eagle Pass.

“We were at the brink of massive catch and release, and when that happens, our communities get turned upside down, and it may start here in Eagle Pass, but then it quickly reaches San Antonio, and then it quickly reaches all over the country,” Gonzales said.

U.S. immigration officials came across a staggering 300,000 immigrants at the southern border in December, making it the highest number of people encountered in a single month in history.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees stationed at the United States-Mexico boundary processed an average of 10,000 immigrants daily for a grand total of more than 302,000 people processed in December, according to a Fox News report Monday.

The previous record of 269,000 encounters was set in September 2023. Prior to that, the record was 252,000 encounters in December 2022.

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The figure is 10 times higher than a number of months during the Obama and Trump administrations, when encounters hung at about 30,000 per month.

Davis did not return a request for comment.