Transcript: Rep. Tony Gonzales on

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we turn now to Texas Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales. Good morning. 

REP. TONY GONZALES: Good morning. Thanks Margaret for having me on.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Let’s talk about immigration. We’ve spoken before. You have this border district. You know a lot of border patrol agents personally–

REP. GONZALES: –Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: They’re your constituents. So Friday, homeland security funding is going to expire.

REP. GONZALES: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And there’s this standoff in the Senate in particular. Democrats are demanding a number of reforms, and I want to lay them out here. And this is sort of the cost of their vote. Democrats want to require a judicial warrant, not just an administrative one, to enter private property. They want federal law enforcement agents to show ID, wear body cameras, standard uniforms, no masks, protect sensitive locations like schools and churches, stop racial profiling, coordinate with local jurisdictions to prosecute crimes. Are you on board with any of these demands? Do you see a deal?

REP. GONZALES: I think we need to work through it. There are some things that make sense, there’s a lot of things that don’t. Just a few days ago, this was a bipartisan vote, and all of a sudden, now the Democrats are trying to hold the country hostage. I’ll tell you what’s not going to be in there, amnesty for illegal aliens. I’ll tell you what’s not going to be there, stripping away protections for law enforcement officers that are trying to protect themselves. If rioters get to wear a mask, then- then law enforcement gets to wear a mask as well. What can be in there? I think the body cameras make a lot of sense. I was really encouraged to see Secretary Noem and Tom Homan execute that. I think those are, those are good parts of it, and another, another thing that works going back to my district, another thing that works is communication. I think it’d be very, very key if there were communication liaisons in all the communities that ICE has, meaning not changing policy, just sharing communication from the community. Let’s say the city manager, let’s say city council, community leaders, up to the administration and back down. I saw the Biden administration do this with ranch liaisons when the ranchers were really upset. And once again, that helped. These are a couple things that I think could make it- could could be, could be the glue that gets this package going,

MARGARET BRENNAN: If the administration will go along with that coordination with local officials. 

REP. GONZALES: Yeah, absolutely. The liaison piece makes a lot of sense to me. I mean that one, once again, you’re not- ICE is not going to stop going to these communities. It would be helpful if we had many Tom Homans all throughout the country basically saying this is what we’re doing, not leaving things to what ifs and letting other people fill that void, but an actual sharing up and down the chain of command if you will. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about the warrants here. The Trump administration has changed how to use warrants and arrests. They permit warrantless arrests as well. This wasn’t done even during the first Trump administration. Leader Jeffries was on another network this morning and said judicial warrants should absolutely be required before ICE agents can storm private property. It should not be controversial, this demand. They just want adherence to Fourth Amendment constitutional protections. As a conservative, shouldn’t a judge be consulted? 

REP. GONZALES: Of course, I believe in the Fourth Amendment. But what worries me is a judge should not hold up everything. We’re seeing judges all over the country go beyond their level of authority, and so, if a law enforcement officer, let’s just say, for example, sees a crime that’s being committed or has due pro- or has due cause, then why can’t they go in there. These administrative warrants, they aren’t new. All of a sudden, the left is-

MARGARET BRENNAN: There is new interpretation of them, and the ICE director has disclosed that.

REP. GONZALES: Well they’re complaining about the use of them. But if you’re an ICE agent and you don’t have cooperation from local or local officials, how are you supposed to get that criminal that’s in somebody’s community? How are you supposed to remove them? That’s what worries me. If we allow judges to be the- the roadblock, it doesn’t keep our community safe.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you- that’s a hard line for you in terms of you would never get on board with requiring that a judicial warrant be required to enter private property?

REP. GONZALES: Administrative warrants work. I want to give law enforcement every tool they need to go out and apprehend these convicted criminals that are loose in our community. To me, that makes a lot of sense. Why you would want to shackle your own law enforcement from keeping our community safe makes no sense to me. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Fourth Amendment protects all people, regardless of citizenship or national origin, from unreasonable search and seizure, so some of those collateral arrests are warrantless, but that’s the politics of, of this funding bill. I’ll put the policy aside for a second because I want to ask you about the cross examination you’re going to have the opportunity to make this week because you have the head of ICE, CBP and another agency come before the Homeland Security Committee. The Republican chair says he has questions about training of immigration agents and their use of force. Are you comfortable with what you saw happen in Minneapolis? I mean, are Republicans going to approach this in a partisan way or hold them to account?

REP. GONZALES: What happened in Minneapolis, nobody in this country should want. We should all strive not to be Minneapolis. We don’t want to see local communities not work with federal government, and we don’t want to see–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –The leaders of the agencies are the ones you’re going to be questioning, though. 

REP. GONZALES: Of course, and I want, I want to know, hey, what are you doing to work with others within the community? So that way it’s not just that ICE going it alone. It shouldn’t be that way, and this is what we’re seeing. Secretary Noem has been very clear- very clear on trying to build these relationships out, and Tom Homan is delivering on this by going in there. 80 counties are now all of a sudden working with ICE, allowing us in jails–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –That was a choice by the administration–

REP. GONZALES: –That works–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –To start working with locals. That was a change.

REP. GONZALES: They’ve been trying to do this. The problem is, is you’ve got so many local municipalities that don’t want to commun- that don’t want to work together, and when that happens, your city burns. We don’t want Los Angeles. We shouldn’t want Minneapolis. People can protest. People can be able to say, hey, we won’t agree with certain policy, but there needs to be more collaboration at the local, state and federal level. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’re going to have to take a break here, but I have more questions for you on the other side of it, so if you would, stay with us. We’ll be right back with more Face the Nation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We return now to our conversation with Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales of Texas. On the homeland security front, we see in our CBS polling that the credibility of the president’s deportation policy is in question. And you can see it right there. A lot of the American public just doesn’t support the methods used for mass deportation, even though they like the idea of mass deportation. In the past, you’ve, you’ve questioned whether the administration was really focusing on the worst of the worst. You said don’t deport “abuelita.” Do you think that they are actually hearing the concern that people like you have raised? And do you think there’s any improvement?

REP. GONZALES: Very early on I mentioned, hey, if we go down this route as a party, we’re not going to be successful, and we’re seeing some of that with some of these special elections that are happening. I am encouraged, I’ve seen the administration highlight more on convicted criminal aliens. I’m seeing Secretary Noem and–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –in their messaging or in their arrests?

REP. GONZALES: In their arrests and in their focus of going into the jails. If you go into a jail and you go cell-by-cell, that makes a lot more sense to American people than going house-by-house, going, are you an American citizen or not? And it’s safer. It’s safer for the agents as well. So I think if we go down that route, we will, we will- we as a Republican Party, will be successful. The other part of it too is to talk about legal immigration. The president has mentioned this many times. Last week he- there was 65,000 work visas that he signed off on. Where he goes, you’re not invited to this country if you come in illegally, but if you’re here legal, we encourage you to come, you know, do it the right way.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I want to talk about that again in a moment, but just to pick up on what you mentioned in your home state. You saw this stunning win by Democrat Taylor Rehmet in what had been a reliably red district. And, in fact, one of 26 statehouse seats that have flipped from Republican to Democrat nationally since President Trump took office. This wasn’t a one-off, in other words. And in the Texas press, there’s a lot of focus on the Latino voters as having really swung back or swung to the Democratic Party. Why? What’s happening?

REP. GONZALES: People are anxious.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is it the deportation policy?

REP. GONZALES: It’s it’s some of what’s being portrayed and what, one of the things I think is very effective for the administration, is for them to highlight the people that they’re deporting- they’re deporting, put them on the website, show them and go, these are the folks that we’re coming after that- I would argue the Hispanic vote is what gave us the Republicans the House, the Senate and the White House. And if we want to keep that long term, we do have to make a shift, not necessarily in policy but in communication. I mentioned this earlier, a communication liaison of someone saying, hey, this is what we’re doing, working with others. So it’s not just a surprise. Prime example, San Antonio. We have a new ICE facility built in San Antonio. A lot of people are anxious, they don’t know where- what’s happening. This is $125 million that’s coming to the community, have 1200 jobs, and after it gets established, there’ll be another 125 million with 325 good paying jobs for our local community.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But- but respectfully, in the past, you have said this isn’t just a PR problem. You actually looked at the numbers and found that it was not the worst of the worst in those detention facilities.

REP. GONZALES: Right. It’s not a PR problem. It has to be- It has to be-

MARGARET BRENNAN: It is a policy problem.

REP. GONZALES: It has to be a policy. But what I am seeing is they are going after the worst of the worst. They’re talking about we’re going after the worst of the worst. The part I think we can improve on is communicating with the local municipalities, those that don’t have an idea, and be able to go, no, you have a seat at the table. We want you to have a seat at the table. Even if it’s different, even if it’s a different conversation or a different ideology, you should have a seat at the table so that way your citizens know what’s happening in your community.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So Trump, Trump was not the first president of the United States to detain children.

REP. GONZALES: Sure.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have this facility, though, in your district, Dilley, and that is for family detentions. That’s where little five-year-old Liam Ramos from Minnesota was held before a judge, that’s the picture of him there, ordered him released. He was ordered released because his family has a pending asylum claim, a legal process. He had entered with U.S. government permission through a process that the Biden administration had deemed legal. The current administration does not. The CBPOne app. Liam’s father gave an interview to Telemundo and you read the transcript, he’s talking about this five-year-old. He’s not okay. He’s waking up at night crying. He’s worried he’s going to be taken again. It’s psychological trauma, according to the father. And the administration is still trying to deport him. Do you understand why they are so focused on this five-year-old and his dad if they did come in through the front door with U.S. government permission? 

REP. GONZALES: Well, the front door was via an app that Biden knew exactly what he was doing, and he created this huge mess, and now President Trump is there to clean up.

MARGARET BRENNAN: –but he came in the front door, he wasn’t–

REP. GONZALES: –through an app–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –across the border–

REP. GONZALES: –through an app that wasn’t vetted. And bottom line is, he’s likely- they’re not going to qualify for asylum. So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five year old at home. I also think, what about that five-year-old U.S. citizen–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –You feel comfortable defending that? 

REP. GONZALES: I feel comfortable- we have to have a nation of laws. If we don’t have a nation of laws–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –They were following the- the law that is- that is that’s the rug, is that a new administration deemed the last administration’s regulation not to be legal.

REP. GONZALES: We can be compassionate, and we can also, we can also enforce our laws. And I think that’s the secret sauce that the administration and Congress must do. Let’s enforce our laws, but let’s do it in a humane way. The facility in Dilley, I’ve visited there many times. I visited dozens of different facilities. It is a nice facility. It’s a detention facility for people that are in the country illegally, that are about to be deported, but it is a nice facility, nicer than some elementary schools here in San Antonio.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Advocates have said otherwise, but quickly, before I let you go, a number of Republican lawmakers have objected to the video that the president and his staff posted to his social media account, the one of President Obama and the former first lady. Do you think he needs to apologize for it?

REP. GONZALES: There’s- it’s up to the president. There’s no room in this country for racism, antisemitism, socialism, all the isms need to go. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: And you think it was that.

REP. GONZALES: At the end, abs- I mean, I think it was very, very upsetting to a lot of people, what- the part of no one’s talking about that video is about election integrity. And so the bulk of it was on election integrity. What I sus- which is a very important topic. What I suspect is going to happen is the White House is going to, in the coming days, issue a memo on their, their, their policy for this upcoming election. And I suspect director of national intelligence is going to be at the center of building that out and making sure every- our- our midterm elections are safe and secure.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But- and I know the president claimed the video was credible, also claimed he had watched it, but then not seen that part of it with the racist–

REP. GONZALES: –It was at the very end, it was at the very end for one second. It was really weird–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –The president of the United States and his staff, wouldn’t you expect that they actually look at what they do before they do it?

REP. GONZALES: The president of the United States should not be worrying about all the people that are upset with him. If he’s doing that, he’s not keeping our country safe–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –But why–

REP. GONZALES: –I did appreciate them taking it down. I did appreciate him saying, hey, look, you know, that shouldn’t have been on there, but– 

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Should the staffer who allegedly did it be fired? Should there be consequences for something like that? 

REP. GONZALES: –The president–

MARGAERET BRENNAN: –And do you think that video is actually credible?

REP. GONZALES: The president can make that decision. We just look- we just had Jeffrie- you know, Hakeem Jeffries, get up there and say the F-word to the president. I mean, the direction our politics is going is not the right way. We need to pull it back, and we need to go, wait a second here. How do we make sure we’re safe? How do we make sure our economy is thriving? How do we make sure Americans are better off today than they were yesterday?

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Congressman Gonzales, thank you for your time, and we’ll have David Becker ahead. We’ll talk about that video in a moment.