{"id":144018,"date":"2026-01-30T12:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/144018\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:11:10","slug":"in-senate-democratic-primary-crockett-steps-up-appeals-to-latinos-with-ice-facility-visit-south-texas-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/144018\/","title":{"rendered":"In Senate Democratic primary, Crockett steps up appeals to Latinos with ICE facility visit, South Texas rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

As state Rep. James Talarico<\/a> ramps up his outreach<\/a> to Latino voters in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett<\/a> is following suit with visits this week to a migrant detention center in Dilley and a campaign rally in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n

With Election Day less than three weeks out, the two Democrats are increasingly courting the key voting bloc of Latino Texans, who make up about a third of the typical Democratic primary electorate. Public polling released Thursday found Talarico leading Crockett by 10 percentage points among Latino voters who are likely to vote in the March 3 primary, a far narrower margin than in earlier surveys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crockett, D-Dallas, on Wednesday visited an immigrant detention center<\/a> in Dilley, about 70 miles south of San Antonio, amid the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. The operation has prompted fierce backlash among Minnesotans and rare pushback<\/a> from elected Republicans in Washington after federal agents fatally shot an ICU nurse during a confrontation.<\/p>\n

Alongside other congressional and state legislative Democrats, Crockett demanded the release of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy who was detained<\/a> along with his father in Minnesota and brought to Texas last week by federal immigration officials.<\/p>\n

At a news conference after the detention center visit, Crockett said she met with Liam and his father, as well as other children held there, who told the lawmakers they were being given poor drinking water<\/a> and did not have access to schooling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe treatment these people are suffering under right now is worse than those that are accused and sometimes even convicted of crimes,\u201d the Dallas Democrat said. \u201cWe are supposed to be better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

She urged Senate Democrats not to approve legislation sent over by the House that would continue funding the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, beyond this week. On Thursday, ahead of Friday\u2019s 11:59 p.m. deadline to fund the government, Senate Democrats struck a deal<\/a> with the White House to continue funding DHS at current levels for two more weeks as they negotiate restrictions on the department\u2019s immigration enforcement actions, while funding a large portion of the government for the rest of the fiscal year. <\/p>\n

As of December, just over half of Latino Texans \u2014 including Republicans \u2014 polled by the Texas Politics Project<\/a> said they thought the Trump administration\u2019s immigration enforcement efforts had \u201cgone too far,\u201d compared to 25% who said it has been \u201cabout right\u201d and 16% who said it has \u201cnot gone far enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Crockett headlined a rally in McAllen \u2014 the biggest city in Hidalgo County, where more than nine in 10 residents are Latino \u2014 alongside Ada Cuellar, an emergency physician running in the Democratic primary for Texas\u2019 15th Congressional District. Cuellar is facing off against Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, who was endorsed by Talarico<\/a>, D-Austin, at a rally in December.<\/p>\n

The winner will take on Republican U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz<\/a>, R-Edinburg, who Democrats see as perhaps their only realistic target out of Texas\u2019 25 GOP-controlled House seats. Latino Texans make up 81% of the district, which stretches from the southern border to a rural swath east of San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s event was a bit of a dueling rally in both the Senate and congressional races, with Crockett and Cuellar endorsing each other just over a month after Talarico and Pulido appeared side-by-side<\/a> and endorsed each other at a rally in Weslaco.<\/p>\n

Cuellar has positioned herself to the left of Pulido, criticizing his personal opposition to abortion and attacking him for living part-time in Mexico City and calling himself a \u201cwinter Texan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulido, who is running as a centrist, has said he opposes Texas\u2019 near-total abortion ban and believes people should have access to the procedure, but personally opposes it because of his Catholic faith. <\/p>\n

In a statement, Pulido spokesperson Marsha Espinosa added, \u201cBobby Pulido was born and raised in South Texas and lives in Edinburg, where he\u2019s raising his family \u2014 that\u2019s home. Like many families, they also spend time, including in the summer, visiting his wife\u2019s family in Mexico City, because staying close to family is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crockett\u2019s move to line up opposite Talarico in the 15th District comes in the closing weeks of a campaign where the candidates have done little thus far to draw contrasts with each other. Their differences have centered more on matters of style, with both embracing progressive stances on key issues. In a recent debate, Crockett took aim at Talarico for being \u201cnot as known right now\u201d and taking campaign cash from a GOP donor who wants to legalize casinos \u2014 the only examples of real friction during the hourlong debate.<\/p>\n

On the stage in McAllen, Crockett urged the crowd to \u201cthink about the generations that you\u2019re fighting for, and think about the generations that fought for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet that be your inspiration,\u201d she said. \u201cLet that be your guide to make sure that we make this country a lot better than we ever thought that it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

In condemning ICE at the rally, Crockett described seeing a pregnant woman detained in Dilley and a woman \u201ccrying in pain\u201d who did not appear to be receiving medical care. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese people need advocates. This was the very first time there was a glimmer of hope in their eyes,\u201d she said, adding that her staffers\u2019 phones were ringing nonstop with calls from family members of detainees thanking her for helping them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consistently help those that are struggling, even though they\u2019re outside of my district, because we have a lot of people on the federal level that don\u2019t want to do their jobs,\u201d she said. \u201cI am beyond tired of the politics of division. It is beyond time for us to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her outreach to Latino Texans, Crockett has also begun putting out press statements and social media posts in Spanish. On Wednesday, she released an ad in English and Spanish that highlights her opposition to ICE, support for impeaching Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and work to \u201crein in\u201d ICE. <\/p>\n

Crockett has faced criticism for year-old comments she made to Vanity Fair<\/a> saying that some Latino Texans\u2019 anti-immigrant attitudes were \u201calmost like a slave mentality,\u201d and over a remark in which she suggested<\/a> the country needed migrants because \u201cwe\u2019re done picking cotton.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about her comments by The Texas Tribune at a campaign event this month, Crockett said, \u201cthere was never an intent to actually offend somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I was elected, and through all of my elections, I have always stood with all people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Talarico has moved to shore up his support among Latino voters by buying air time for a Spanish-language TV ad<\/a> that played last week in nearly a dozen of the state\u2019s largest media markets. He also launched new social media channels that will promote his message in Spanish and feature Spanish-speaking content creators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As state Rep. James Talarico ramps up his outreach to Latino voters in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2137,2671,288,39926,2132,287,1472,1474,27,2850,29,293,28,2134,6473],"class_list":{"0":"post-144018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-jasmine-felicia-crockett","12":"tag-latinos","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-rio-grande-valley","15":"tag-south-texas","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-texas-congressional-delegation","18":"tag-texas-headlines","19":"tag-texas-legislature","20":"tag-texas-news","21":"tag-u-s-senate","22":"tag-well-a-homepage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}