Let's be honest. This could be a winning message for a Senate race ... in Massachusetts, Illinois, and maybe even Oregon. But Texas?
James Talarico and CNN staged a town hall event last night, having rested up for his first actual campaign appearance in person in over two weeks. Talarico appeared poised and rested – well-rested – and built some rapport with the smallish audience CNN assembled. It had an entre-nous intimacy, which may have been its best quality for a candidate who literally hid from voters for a fortnight or so.
However, atmosphere only counts when the answers don't hearken back to the worst of the Biden Regency. And that's exactly what Talarico promised on the one policy that matters most to Texans, who endured the worst of Joe Biden's border crisis for four years:
James Talarico calls to grant mass amnesty to millions of criminal illegal aliens. https://t.co/88o1HMQgW0
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 15, 2026
Ahem. Texans love their neighbors; what they oppose are squatters, and that's precisely what illegal aliens are. Amnesty, or in Talarico's words "path to citizenship," rewards squatting. If you've squatted long enough, Talarico is arguing, you're entitled to the property. The "path to citizenship" has never been about anything other than political power for Democrats, and Americans got so fed up with it during the Biden Regency that they elected Donald Trump to a second non-consecutive term to evict the squatters and put an end to amnesty for good.
That process involves ejecting these "squatters" from the country. That means enforcing federal immigration law, and that means using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as the Border Patrol. Eight months ago, Talarico demanded that ICE get abolished when running for the Democrat nomination, putting an end to any enforcement and returning to Biden's policies on the border.
Last night, Talarico claimed to have changed his mind on that in an awkward moment, insisting America needs ICE and immigration enforcement. He then went on to call ICE a "secret police" for using unmarked vehicles, smearing them while neglecting to mention that the ICE operations to which Talarico objects take place in jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement:
Talarico rejects the abolition of ICE before proceeding to smear ICE https://t.co/8mVgUPDRme
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 15, 2026
What about open borders? Talarico is smart enough to steer clear of that phrase, but he's endorsing the Biden Regency policies that created the four-year border crisis. Neutering ICE and recreating the path-to-citizenship incentives behind the Biden Border Crisis will have the exact same outcome we saw between 2021-24 – massive caravans of illegal aliens swarming across the border, asylum claims overwhelming the adjudication systems, and no enforcement for the millions of absconders who end up squatting all over again.
And then Talarico will tell us again that these are our "neighbors" too, and that we owe them legal status because progressives like Talarico promised it to them. Lather, rinse, repeat. Talarico is selling us the Biden plan, with 30% less dementia and family-sized entitlement.
Talarico is a Biden retread, a progressive crank, who wants to sell out Texas and Texans for our "neighbors." I truly hope Texas voters paid attention to this last night. A vote for Talarico is a vote for Joe Biden's border crisis all over again.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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