If you turn on the television in South Texas’ congressional district 15 right now, you are bound to see Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s latest campaign ad. In it, a local family shares the harrowing story of a DACA-recipient father detained by immigration authorities while visiting his newborn daughter in the neonatal intensive care unit. In the ad, De La Cruz steps into the frame as the savior: the congresswoman who intervened to bring him back home.
The family in the ad has every right to share their story however they see fit. Any parent who has lived through the nightmare of family separation during a medical crisis deserves support, and congressional offices should help constituents navigate government systems that are negatively impacting their lives.
However, framing the congresswoman’s actions as extraordinary benevolence leaves out the larger reality. Assisting one constituent for a 30-second campaign spot does not make De La Cruz a champion for DACA recipients, especially when her voting record tells a completely different story.
Across South Texas, immigrant families navigate daily life under the threat of a rogue enforcement machine that operates without accountability. The trauma featured in that television spot is far from an isolated incident. Take for example DACA recipient Yenniffer England who earlier this year was detained for over three months and forced to spend Mother’s Day behind bars at the El Valle Detention Center away from her children. Another story is Jose Luis Contreras Diaz’, who was detained and deported all the way to Honduras before community pressure and his own self-advocacy helped bring him back, all while having active DACA status.
Across the river in Matamoros, Jessica Treviño Villegas is approaching a full year in exile, stranded despite holding active DACA status after ICE violently deported her and separated her from her teenage children. These three cases are just a few that have been documented by La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) within its membership.
These are not administrative oversights, and they cannot be fixed by individual casework alone.
They are the human toll of an aggressive deportation machine that De La Cruz repeatedly votes to fund and expand. Unfortunately, her priority has been growing the budgets of unchecked enforcement agencies, not delivering lasting protections to our families.
A concrete fix is already within reach. On Capitol Hill, the discharge petition for the American Dream and Promise Act would force a House floor vote to create a permanent pathway to citizenship for up to 6 million Dreamers and TPS holders. As fate would have it, the petition currently sits at 217 signatures, just one short of the 218 required to bypass House leadership and bring it to a vote. Members of LUPE, who met directly with the congresswoman’s office and have advocated for months on this issue, recently put out a video calling on De La Cruz to pair her actions with her words and sign onto the discharge petition.Rep. De La Cruz has a golden opportunity to be that final signature, a move that could change the substance of her ad from mere political optics into real political leadership.
Providing a pathway to citizenship should be the floor of what represents South Texas values. South Texas Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez have already added their names. De La Cruz should join them and create a regional consensus and establish a strong South Texas bloc that puts our families over party lines.
Instead, she has deflected by claiming she supports the Dignity Act. That excuse collapses under scrutiny. Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, the primary Republican co-sponsor of the Dignity Act, signed the discharge petition herself. Salazar understood that when people’s lives hang in the balance, serious lawmakers do not hide behind stalled bills. They use every mechanism available to force progress.
As LUPE member and District 15 constituent Enrique Muñoz put it, “We do not want temporary measures that leave people in a constant state of uncertainty. Please support a legal, permanent immigration status and a pathway to citizenship, so that people can live dignified lives free from fear.”
Working families in the Valley do not need politicians who stage dramatic rescues for campaign footage while voting to keep our neighborhoods under constant anxiety. We need permanent status. If De La Cruz genuinely wants to protect Dreamers, she should stop ballooning rogue enforcement budgets, drop the procedural excuses, and pick up the pen as the 218th vote South Texas needs.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Dani Marrero Hi, deputy director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero and LUPE Votes. The column appears in the Rio Grande Guardian with the permission of the author.
