MCALLEN, Texas — Congressman-elect Bobby Pulido says he will make comprehensive immigration reform his number one priority when he takes office in Washington, arguing that the Rio Grande Valley’s economy and working families cannot be separated from how federal immigration laws are enforced.
The Edinburg Democrat made the pledge during a sit-down interview with MS Now correspondent Rosa Flores shortly after his decisive victory over two-term Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz in Texas’s 15th Congressional District. Flores, who also scored the first interview with the Tejano music star when he launched his congressional campaign, pressed Pulido on what he can do to address the impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations across Hidalgo County.
The impact of ICE brought Pulido and the reporter close to tears. Like Pulido, Flores is from the Rio Grande Valley.
Pulido’s comments follow one of the largest political shifts in the country during the Nov. 3 general election. Unofficial returns show Pulido defeated De La Cruz with 61.6 percent of the vote (116,945 votes) to De La Cruz’s 38.4 percent (72,761 votes) — a 23.2-percentage-point margin.
That outcome represents a massive 37.4-percentage-point swing from 2024, when De La Cruz won reelection over Democrat Michelle Vallejo by 14.2 percentage points (57.1 percent to 42.9 percent), and a more than 41-point reversal from the 18-point margin by which President Donald Trump carried the South Texas district two years ago.
During the interview, Flores noted that voters across Hidalgo County told her recent ICE actions had "devastated families" and local businesses. Pulido said that on the campaign trail, people frequently asked him whether immigration or the economy was more important to voters.
"I said it's the same for us. Those two issues are interrelated. It's one, right? If we don't fix immigration, our economy suffers. And right now, that's what we saw," Pulido told Flores. "Because look, there's not a building in the Rio Grande Valley that wasn't built without immigrant hands. Every one of them."
Pulido connected the economic fallout directly to the structure of traditional Mexican American households in South Texas, reflecting on his own upbringing.
"My mom had one of the hardest jobs without getting paid. It was raising us. Dad was the provider. Dad would go work,and mom was making sure that we were always on time with school and eating healthy and doing all the things, teaching us the lessons of life," Pulido said. "And when you remove the breadwinner of that family, you destroy them. You destroy families."
Flores noted that she had spoken with tearful Valley residents who expressed hope in seeing figures like Pulido — alongside Texas Democratic statewide contenders Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico — fight for their communities, asking what the moment meant to him not as a Tejano star or politician, but "as a son of the Rio Grande Valley."
"It's responsibility. It's a big one, a lot of weight, but these shoulders can handle a lot of weight, and I'm ready to do it," Pulido said. "I'm carrying those voices with me, man, because we hear stories every day."
To pass meaningful reform, Pulido argued that lawmakers must put policy ahead of partisan gamesmanship. He pointed to the bipartisan border security bill authored by Republican Sen. James Lankford during the final year of the Biden administration, which collapsed after Trump urged GOP lawmakers to oppose it.
"That is what we don't need — politicizing that issue, playing with people's lives. We can fix it with policy. I promise you.We just have to get rid of the politics," Pulido said.
Asked how he could persuade Trump to support immigration reform now, Pulido said he would welcome a face-to-face meeting at the White House.
"I have never met him, didn't vote for him, but I would like to meet with him because I think his legacy could be a real important one if he were to do the right thing," Pulido said. "I'm not looking at this from a red or blue, Republican or Democrat perspective. It just makes sense for us, and we need it."
While affirming his support for keeping the border secure, Pulido drew a sharp line against what he described as discriminatory enforcement tactics inside Valley neighborhoods, noting that roughly 35 to 40 percent of local residents speak only Spanish.
"They're profiling based on how you speak, and if you're driving around in your truck and you have a lawnmower in the back, they stop you. No probable cause, nothing other than they're profiling you," Pulido said. "There's a fear that's permeating through society here right now. We see it every day. People afraid to go to a grocery store."
Pulido acknowledged that curbing those operations will be challenging because congressional Republicans bundled ICE funding together with broader border security appropriations extending through the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
"I think everybody just had a problem with ICE, but Republicans were really sneaky in how they did that," Pulido said, adding that lawmakers should have held out until the funding streams were separated. Even so, Pulido vowed to explore every legislative avenue once sworn in: "I'm sure there are going to be things that we're going to be able to try to do to stem that."
