{"id":467182,"date":"2026-10-15T21:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/467182\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T21:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:38:17","slug":"reelection-all-but-secure-joaquin-castro-focuses-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/467182\/","title":{"rendered":"Reelection all but secure, Joaquin Castro focuses on immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

When redistricting<\/a> took a primarily West Side district to one that encompasses nearly all of downtown San Antonio, the 20th Congressional District turned bluer than ever, effectively curbing any Republican challenger\u2019s bid for the seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro<\/a> (D-San Antonio) has been sitting this election out.<\/p>\n

Instead, Castro is standing outside the gates of immigration detention centers in South Texas, drawing national attention to the issue of detained children and families and criticizing the Trump administration for brutality.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also working to help Democrats statewide and nationally take control of Congress during the upcoming midterm elections, he said.<\/p>\n

Castro\u2019s opponent on the ballot is Edgardo B\u00e1ez<\/a>, a U.S. Army veteran, retired medical professional and lawyer whose campaign looks to pick up the voters shifted in during redistricting.<\/p>\n

While Castro\u2019s office may not be up for easy grabs, it\u2019s clear from the recent San Antonio rally in San Antonio<\/a> headlined by President Donald Trump that the state of Texas is, Castro said.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/p>\n

This piece is part of a two-story series on the candidates in Congressional District 20. Read our companion profile<\/a> of Republican candidate Edgardo B\u00e1ez here.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolling has made consistently clear that our candidates for senator and governor are on the cusp of winning for the first time in a generation, and that\u2019s because the people of Texas are fed up with this out-of-control Republican leadership in our state,\u201d Castro said in an interview with the Report ahead of early voting, which kicks off Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texans are \u201cfed up\u201d with the war in Iran, tariffs and what he calls a mass deportation campaign, issues that when combined are making it hard for consumers to make ends meet and for businesses to keep their doors open, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas is within striking distance of turning blue this cycle, Castro said \u2014 and campaigning to try to make it happen is an opportunity he can\u2019t ignore.<\/p>\n

Native son<\/p>\n

Born in 1974, Castro grew up on San Antonio\u2019s West Side and attended public schools with his identical twin brother, former three-term mayor and District 7 Councilman Juli\u00e1n Castro.<\/p>\n

Their mother, Rosie Castro, is first-generation Mexican American, a longtime American civil rights activist and educator and former interim District 7 council member<\/a>. Their father, Jessie Guzman, is a retired mathematics teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District.<\/p>\n

\"\"Congressional District 20\u2019s boundaries after mid-cycle redistricting.<\/p>\n

Castro attended Stanford University in California and earned a law degree from Harvard University.<\/p>\n

In 2002, when he was 28, Castro ran for Texas\u2019 125th House district seat, and in the Democratic primary, defeated incumbent Arthur Reyna. In the general election, he defeated Republic nominee Nelson Balido.<\/p>\n

Castro is an attorney who has represented Texas\u2019 20th Congressional District since 2013. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.<\/p>\n

On Thursday evening, Castro is attending a District 1 town hall with Texas congressmen Rep. Diego Bernal and Sen. Jos\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez (San Antonio), and City Councilwoman Sukh Kaur.<\/p>\n

Kaur said Castro works for all residents in the community on issues big and small, including, recently, the quiet zones in areas of the city where the railroad passes and also bringing an American family back from India after their travel was blocked. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been an amazing leader truly in the immigration conversation and ensuring that all of the residents in our community feel safe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"JoaquinFormer U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Juli\u00e1n Castro listens to his brother, U.S. Rep Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) speak at a rally for Kamala Harris at San Antonio College in 2024. Credit: Bria Woods \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

\u201cI got into public service because I fundamentally believe that one of the main roles of people in government is to help create an \u2018infrastructure of opportunity\u2019 for the people they represent,\u201d Castro said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to the issues that we\u2019re dealing with very intensely at any given time, I always come back to working on building that infrastructure of opportunity for folks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Castro served as campaign chair for his brother during Juli\u00e1n Castro\u2019s failed 2020 presidential bid.<\/p>\n

In recent years, while holding down his day job in Congress, Castro has also coped with surgery and treatments following a 2022 diagnosis of neuroendocrine cancer. He said that remaining tumors in his liver have not grown, evidence that his monthly treatment at the Mays Cancer Center in San Antonio<\/a> is working.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The experience has been a reminder of why he fights for universal health care, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Detention centers<\/p>\n

Since last year, Castro has made nine visits to the South Texas Family Residential Center in the town of Dilley since the Trump administration reopened the facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been to ICE facilities in the South Texas cities of Karnes, Pearsall and Laredo multiple times, and to an Office of Refugee Resettlement camp in San Benito.<\/p>\n

There, he\u2019s met with detained immigrants, pointed to inhumane conditions and called for the \u201ctrailer prisons\u201d to be shut down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCongressman Castro has been on the front lines of this administration\u2019s attacks on immigrant communities and is dedicated to ensuring everyone knows what\u2019s happening to kids in detention,\u201d said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project Action Fund<\/a> and a supporter. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to stand next to him in so many of our fights for civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro has worked for detainees to be released in high-profile immigration cases, like Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old Minneapolis boy detained in January while wearing a bunny hat and a Spiderman backpack, and later, teenage mariachi-performing brothers from McAllen who had once performed at the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of my district have asked for help,\u201d he said. \u201cI literally get outreach every single day on different platforms \u2026 from people asking for help because this mass deportation campaign has devastated so many families in San Antonio and South Texas, and also it\u2019s devastated many businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Trump announced he would headline a recent rally in San Antonio, Castro invited the president to visit Dilley \u201cto see the lifelong lasting trauma he\u2019s caused to these kids, to see what he\u2019s doing in the name of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro said it did not surprise him that the president did not accept.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese decisions that have been so ugly and so cruel have been made from Washington, D.C., by many people who have never visited the border, never visited South Texas, and are completely unfamiliar with our communities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The brothers spent their recent 52nd birthday block-walking and writing get-out-the-vote postcards with the Bexar Democrats at the St. Paul Community Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Castro has also been a frequent speaker on the campaign trail supporting other Democratic candidates, including lieutenant governor nominee Vikki Goodwin and gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis mass deportation campaign in Texas is as much [Gov.] Greg Abbott\u2019s as it is Donald Trump\u2019s,\u201d he said during a panel at the recent Texas Tribune Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, speaks to the media in San Antonio, Texas after visiting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Dilley, on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Credit: Isaiah Moseley for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n

\u2018On a new course\u2019<\/p>\n

If his party flips the chamber this November and takes control of the House, Castro said he wants to see a special commission investigate ICE, including deaths in custody and at the hands of agents, and to pursue legislation overhauling the agency.<\/p>\n

For now, Castro and the Democrats are in defensive mode.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the longer-term goal is to get Congress to do its job of passing immigration reform,\u201d he said, which it came close to doing in 2013. \u201cI feel like that we could have avoided a lot of the ugliness that has come in American politics if the Congress had just passed that bill back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he believes the election in November is going to set the nation \u201con a new course.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Castro is working on American foreign policy and, if Democrats take control of the House, would chair the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere in the Foreign Affairs Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That subcommittee oversees U.S. relations with Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba and other countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis president, more than any in generations, has focused a real spotlight on Latin America,\u201d he said. \u201cI disagree with many of the policies that the administration has pursued, but there\u2019s no question that there is a renewed spotlight and interest in our relationship with Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro is proud of his San Antonio roots and that he represents the city in Washington. \u201cI think every day about how I could help make the lives of San Antonians better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When redistricting took a primarily West Side district to one that encompasses nearly all of downtown San Antonio,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8519,159006,2671,159007,55658,79427,21085,106972,158623,82,84,83,4876,54951,92,159008,2860],"class_list":["post-467182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-2026-election","tag-20th-congressional-district","tag-congress","tag-congressional-district-20","tag-ice-detention-centers","tag-immigration-reform","tag-joaquin-castro","tag-julian-castro","tag-mid-term-elections","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sukh-kaur","tag-texas-20th-congressional-district","tag-top-story","tag-tx20","tag-u-s-house-of-representatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467182","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=467182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}