(The Center Square) – After President Joe Biden gave his state of the union address, a congresswoman from a border community in Texas said, “I heard a president who does not understand us.”
U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz was the first female Republican Texas congresswoman in U.S. history to give a Spanish language rebuttal to a state of the union address.
De La Cruz, who represents Texas’ new Congressional District 15 after redistricting, was the first female Republican elected to Congress in her district in Texas history in November 2022. She is running for reelection.
De La Cruz, who was raised by a single mother and is a granddaughter of a Mexican farmer, launched a small business in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley while also raising her children as a single mother.
“I have lived the American Dream,” she said, but after listening to the president speak, “I heard a president who does not understand us. President Biden tried to say that everything is perfect, but we know that it is not true. Parents want the best for our children, but under Biden everything is more difficult at the border.”
“We see the disaster that Biden has caused,” she continued. “At the beginning of his term, he stopped enforcing the laws and now the cartels and many criminals enter our country. As a mother of two children, it hurts me to see how thousands of young people have been killed,” she said, resulting from his policies. The president says his border policies are humane, she said, but “what’s humane about allowing someone to kill our people? Republicans want to stop this, but the president is not cooperating.”
Recent polls show the majority of Texas Hispanics support building a border wall and sending troops to the Texas-Mexico border.
It’s not just Biden’s border policies, she said, but “his policies are also hurting our economy. Under his administration, inflation has reached its highest point in four decades and credit cards are stretched thin. Everything is very expensive, from food and gas to childcare and mortgages.”
Several of the financial claims the president made have been fact checked to be false, The Center Square has reported. Just days after his remarks, newly released Consumer Price Index data showed the costs of goods and services increased even more in February than expected, indicating “unusually high” inflation. Despite this, the president proposed a budget packed with tax hikes and increases to the national debt.
Under Biden, the federal government began adding $1 trillion in national debt every three months, the first time in U.S. history.
In one year under Biden, car insurance rates surged 26% nationally, business executives have warned about ongoing widespread layoffs and employers primarily hiring part-time workers.
“Under the previous administration, Hispanics led the country in creating new small businesses,” De La Cruz said. “Now the dream of being your own boss seems out of reach. Biden’s tales aren’t going to pay our bills.”
“Hispanics deserve a strong leader,” she said, comparing Americans’ way of life living under Biden to under former president Donald Trump. Trump first endorsed her in 2022.
“Just ask yourself: are you better off today than you were three years ago? Is the American Dream more alive today? How is your pocketbook?” she asked.
The last three years have been difficult under the current administration, she said, “but I still have hope Republicans support working families. We want safe communities and a strong economy and controlled borders.
“America is the greatest example of freedom. Here everything is possible. Many of our families came with nothing. But like my grandfather, they worked to attain a better future for their children. Our country can be great again if we return to our values.”
El sueño americano ha sido una pesadilla desde 2021, con una frontera abierta, la inflación por las nubes, el fentanilo matando a nuestros hijos, y un presidente que está desconectado de la realidad. Estoy orgullosa de representar a los republicanos de la Cámara esta noche y… pic.twitter.com/r3R8Z1SnFR— Rep. Monica De La Cruz (@RepMonicaDLC) March 8, 2024
De La Cruz has long said that Democrats do not represent Hispanic values, which she says are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-work.
In 2022, for the first time in history, a majority of Hispanic Texans said the Republican Party better reflected their values and priorities, including embracing “hard work,” supporting small business owners, fixing illegal immigration and “protecting my way of life.”
This is after a shift occurred in 2020 when Hispanic Texans voted for Trump by the largest margin in state history for a Republican presidential candidate.
Hispanic voters and officials have shifted right over the years, Project RedTX, a group helping to get Republicans elected in traditionally Democratic areas, notes. More officials have left the Democratic Party to become Republicans since 2018. The group’s director, Wayne Hamilton, maintains, “Republicans continue to make significant inroads in Texas border communities and other historically blue regions of the state.”
During the midterm elections, a poll identified three regions in Texas where Hispanic voters were leaning more Republican including in South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, and outer suburbs of Texas’ four largest cities where minorities are disproportionately impacted by border and cartel related crime.
