Border Security

Houston is not a border town, but the border is a Houston issue. Cartel fentanyl moves through the Gulf Coast logistics network and ends up in our schools and our emergency rooms.^{11U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, "DEA Houston Field Division Announces the Seizure of Over 7 Million Deadly Doses of Fentanyl in 2022" (December 28, 2022) — the DEA Houston Field Division covers most of South and East Texas includin…} Human trafficking operations stage in our suburbs. Local police and the Harris County Sheriff are forced to absorb the costs of a failed federal immigration system that the people in this district never voted for. The first job of the federal government is to defend the country and enforce its laws at the border. Until that job is done, every other promise Washington makes is hollow. Alexander will treat border security as a non-negotiable starting point — not a chip to trade and not a slogan, but the floor of any serious immigration conversation.

The framework is straightforward and proven. Finish the wall in the sectors where physical barrier has demonstrably reduced illegal crossings.^{22U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "Wall Construction Continues as Part of a Holistic Approach to Stop Illegal Immigration" — CBP officials on record stating that "locations where physical barriers have been constructed saw reduced ille…} End the catch-and-release pipeline, and stop the abuse of CBP parole authority that has been used to admit more than a million people who should have been processed through legal channels.^{33Congressional Research Service, "Immigration Parole," R46570 (updated September 18, 2025) — comprehensive CRS analysis of Section 212(d)(5) parole authority documenting the Biden administration's expanded use of CBP parole authority thro…} Fund adequate detention capacity so that the immigration courts can actually adjudicate cases.^{44U.S. Executive Office for Immigration Review, Adjudication Statistics — the federal immigration court pending caseload reached over 4.18 million cases by January 2025 before declining to under 3.75 million by September 2025, the sharpest…} Designate the major Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations so that the full weight of federal counterterrorism intelligence and law enforcement coordination can be brought to bear on the networks responsible for the synthetic opioid crisis that killed more than 48,000 Americans in 2024 alone.^{55Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, "U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease Almost 27% in 2024" (May 14, 2025) — provisional data documenting 48,422 deaths involving fentanyl and other synthetic opio…}

Alexander will support bills like the Laken Riley Act,^{66Laken Riley Act, Public Law 119-1 (signed January 29, 2025) — requires federal detention of unauthorized aliens charged with theft, burglary, assault on a law enforcement officer, or any crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury.…} the Secure the Border Act,^{77Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2, 118th Congress) — comprehensive border-security legislation passed by the House in May 2023 covering wall completion, CBP staffing, asylum reform, parole authority restrictions, and E-Verify mandates. Reint…} and the basic congressional appropriations needed to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The contrast on this could not be sharper. On February 6, 2026, Lizzie Fletcher co-introduced the Freeze ICE Act — H.R. 7392 — a bill to halt new hiring at the agency responsible for immigration enforcement.^{88Office of Representative John Garamendi, "Reps. Garamendi, Fletcher Introduces Bill to Institute Hiring 'Freeze' at ICE" (February 6, 2026) — official press release announcing the introduction of H.R. 7392, the Freeze ICE Act, co-led by …} She co-led the bill with Representative John Garamendi of California, introducing it from our Houston-area district during her own re-election campaign. Its cosponsors are exclusively Democrats.^{99U.S. House of Representatives, Clerk of the House, H.R. 7392 cosponsor history — additional cosponsors added February 9, February 11, February 25, and March 12, 2026; the bill is referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security. All …} The bill currently sits in the House Committee on Homeland Security, where Fletcher does not serve, and has no Republican support. This is the legislation a Houston representative chose to lead with at a moment when fentanyl is killing Texans, cartels are operating across the Gulf Coast, and Harris County's own law enforcement is straining under federal inaction. Alexander will reverse that approach by restoring ICE staffing, voting to fund DHS rather than against it, and conditioning federal law-enforcement grants on local cooperation with ICE detainers.

Border security is also the necessary precondition for honest legal-immigration reform. Alexander supports moving toward a points-based, merit-driven framework that weights English proficiency, education, work experience, and job offers, eliminates the diversity visa lottery, and focuses family-sponsored immigration on spouses and minor children. It is pro-merit, and it honors the immigrants — many of them in TX-07's South Asian, Nigerian, Vietnamese, and skilled-professional communities — who waited years and did it the right way.

The honest framing matters. TX-07 is one of the most diverse congressional districts in Texas, and many of the people who live here are immigrants or the children of immigrants. They came legally, they worked, they built businesses, and they raised families. They have less patience than anyone for open-borders politics — because they know exactly what it costs to do this the right way, and they resent watching the line jumped by people who didn't. Alexander's border-security agenda is a defense of the rule of law, of public safety in Houston neighborhoods, and of the legal-immigration system that built this district. A representative, such as Lizzie Fletcher, who co-introduces a bill to freeze ICE hiring is not representing those families. Alexander will.