Democrat Challenging Ted Cruz Promises To Be Tough On Border — But He Previously Called ICE ‘Un-American’

Democratic Texas Rep. Colin Allred, who is running to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is campaigning that he will be strict on border security despite disparaging immigration authorities while running for Congress in 2018.

Allred accused U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) during the 2018 midterm elections of being “un-American,” “damaging” and “harmful to our public safety,” according to videos from several campaign events. Now that he’s running for Senate, Allred has released ads that lean into the border issue by claiming he will “secure the border” and “add more” agents if elected.

“We’re seeing ICE used as a dragnet force grabbing anyone who looks brown in a community, finding out later whether or not they have documents,” Allred alleged at a 2017 campaign event. “This is completely un-American.”

“The way [ICE is] being used right now is, in my opinion, so damaging to so many of our communities because it is leading to fewer reports of criminal activity in some Latino communities because people are afraid that every single report can turn into a immigration issue,” he later said at a 2018 congressional debate. “It is harmful to our public safety.”

Allred called the United States’ border wall “stupid” during an April 2018 campaign event and suggested that Texans are okay with immigrants crossing the border because “we grew up in a state that’s incredibly diverse.” He also called the wall “racist” at a different event that year and called to have it torn down.

“I wanna briefly talk about this racist wall. The symbol of this country cannot be a fence with barbed wire on top of it. It has to remain the Statue of Liberty. I’ll tell you what. If they build that wall, my generation will be the one that tears it down. We will not have this in this country. We will not have this wall in our country. We are not going to waste billions of dollars on a racist campaign promise and we are not going to turn the symbol of this country into a wall with barbed wire on top of it,” Allred said.

Allred released an ad Aug. 1, however, that featured him standing near a barrier at the southern border.

“Out here, they don’t have time for politics,” Allred said in the ad. “I’m Colin Allred, I’m working with both parties to finally secure the border, to add more border patrol agents, crack down on fentanyl, end human trafficking and get tough with the cartels.”

The Democratic congressman again claimed that he is in favor of hiring more border patrol agents in an Aug. 6 ad.

“Colin Allred is a radical leftist who has voted for open borders, publicly bashed ICE, called the border wall racist, and proudly touted an endorsement from an organization that has called for the defunding of the police and the abolition of ICE,” a Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “He cannot defend his radical record to Texas voters.”

There have been over 8 million encounters at the southern border since President Joe Biden took office, with many concentrating in U.S. cities like New York and Chicago, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Illegal immigrants have also committed several high-profile crimes, including the murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia.

In a June 2024 Gallup poll, 55% of Americans reported that they would like to see the amount of immigration into the United States decrease, the highest level of opposition to immigration recorded since October 2001. Fifty-one percent of Americans, including 45% of Latinos, support mass deportations of illegal immigrants, according to an Axios poll released in April.

Allred appeared to harden his immigration rhetoric as the congressman in June when he introduced introduced a bill that would have had the federal government analyze the staffing shortage among immigration enforcement officials and formulate a way to address it. Allred bragged that his bill was endorsed by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents some Customs and Border Protection agents.

Previously, however, he took a much softer stance on immigration, opposing efforts to ban sanctuary cities, supporting a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and opposing legislation aimed at reducing illegal crossings, Fox News Digital reported.

The congressman attended a campaign-related event in May where organizers distributed literature informing migrants on how to evade law enforcement, Fox News reported.

Polls tend to show Cruz defeating Allred by a comfortable margin, with Real Clear Polling’s average putting him about 7 points ahead as of Aug. 26. Some polls, however, show a much tighter race, with a recent University of Houston survey putting Allred within just two points of Cruz.

Democrats have invested heavily in trying to defeat Cruz, buying or reserving roughly $23.5 million worth of advertisements in the Texas Senate race as of Aug. 7, according to Axios. The National Border Patrol Council, a labor union that represents border patrol agents, endorsed Cruz on Aug. 21.

The Allred campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.