Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, warned the ‘the worst is ahead’ for the intensifying migrant crisis, as districts border-wide brace for the multitude of migrants surging the U.S. after the expiration of Title 42. 

‘Many of my cities have declared a state of emergency,’ Gonzales said during in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday. ‘Basically, my office is turned into a mini FEMA office… Everybody is inundated at the same time. So that’s why I’ve been in constant communications with my local leaders to go, You tell me what you need when you need it, so that way I can go to the highest levels and advocate for the things that you need.’

The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that would increase border security amid the expiration of Title 42 — the pandemic-era policy that allowed the immediate expulsion of migrants from America for the past three years — but Gonzales stressed that ‘this bill does nothing’ without action from the Biden administration.

‘It doesn’t end with 218 votes in the House. It’s only the start,’ Gonzales said of the House bill. ‘This ends when the President of the United States signs a bill into law that incorporates border security and has some immigration reform applications in there.’

The Texas congressman also revealed that House Republicans reportedly removed language from the bill that would have labeled the cartel as ‘terrorists.’

‘This is a part I’m a little disappointed in. I pushed hard to label cartels as terrorists, because that’s what they are. And I got a lot of pushback on that. And at the 11th hour, a lot of House Republicans removed the word terrorists. I guess that offends Republicans that we call cartels the terrorists,’ Gonzales said. 

‘In a district like mine, this bill does nothing,’ he told Fox. ‘I’ve been on the phone nonstop to include, with the secretary of homeland security, saying ya know what are the things were some things that I think need to happen today, not ten years from now.’

Gonzales is continuing push for a 14% increase in pay for border patrol agents through the Border Patrol Pay Parity Act, as he seeks to reform the current immigration system. ‘The asylum process is completely broken, and it needs to be it needs to be fixed,’ the congressman said.

The representative recalled having a ‘love hate relationship’ with the Biden administration, as congressional Republicans and Democrats clash on ways to manage the crisis at the southern border.

‘I think we have a love hate relationship. They know how active I am in the space and how involved I am and also how much my district is a large percentage of the border. They also know when they don’t respond, that I’ll be the first one to kind of knock them over the head, if you will. 

On Thursday, border patrol agents reported 10,000 migrant encounters for the third day in a row. While there remains a multitude of illegal immigrants make their way into America, Gonzales noted that there has also been an increase in ICE deportations.

‘But you know what? There’s a lot of coordination. One of the things that I was very happy to see was in the last few days, there’s been more ICE flights that sent people back to their country of origin. I know yesterday there was a couple hundred that got sent back to Guatemala. And these were some of the things that I was working on.’

He highlighted making real progress with the administration.

‘Last week, I spoke with the president of Guatemala. He was having difficulties connecting with the administration. So yesterday I worked with the administration to connect with the president of Guatemala. And then, yesterday, 200 Guatemalans get flown back to their country of origin. To me, that is moving the ball forward. That’s a real tangible thing that is helping kind of secure the border. Some of the political theater that’s up here, that’s all politics.’

As Title 42’s expiration prompted tens of thousands of migrants to journey towards the U.S. in hopes of being allowed entry, Biden sent 1,500 active military troops in an attempt to control the influx of illegal immigrants heading North.

‘I spent 20 years in the military, fought in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military should be trained to fight and win wars and not do administrative work,’ Gonzales said in response to Biden’s order. ‘I am of the mindset, if you want this crisis to end you, you surge immigration judges to the border, and you have their cases heard in days, not years.’

Gov. Greg Abbot of Texas also deployed the national guard to aid in the border crisis, but Gonzales reiterated his claim that the border crisis needs to be address at a federal level for there to be real change.

‘I’m a little mixed. As a Texas resident, we have spent billions of dollars on border security where we could have spent that money on school safety or other things. On the other end, I know the governor is doing everything he possibly can to keep his head above water,’ Gonzales said. ‘But this is a federal issue, and it can only be solved when the federal government enforces the laws that are already on the books. Anything else is — I don’t think it meets the mark. But, you know, I understand whether it’s local or state, folks are doing everything they can to alleviate some of the stress.’

Two high-profile Iowa Republicans – state Senate President Amy Sinclair and state House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl – are endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expected presidential bid, Fox News has confirmed.

Word of the endorsements come two days ahead of DeSantis’ Saturday return to Iowa – the state whose caucuses lead off the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

The Florida governor will be in the heavily red northwestern part of the state in the late morning to headline Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra’s third annual Feenstra Family Picnic fundraiser in Sioux Center. Later in the day, he’ll head east to Cedar Rapids to headline an Iowa GOP fundraising event. 

Sources in DeSantis’ political orbit tell Fox News that Sinclair and Windschitl are expected to attend the governor’s events in Iowa on Saturday.

DeSantis will be in Iowa the same day as former President Donald Trump, who’s the current overwhelming front-runner in the Republican nomination race as he runs a third straight time for the White House. Trump is scheduled to hold an evening rally in Des Moines.

The two high-profile endorsements for DeSantis in Iowa – which were first reported by the Des Moines Register – come a week after he landed the support of a top state GOP lawmaker in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican nominating schedule. That endorsement came from state House Majority Leader Jason Osborne.

Trump released a dozen endorsements from Iowa Republican leaders ahead of a March stop in Davenport. 

And at a campaign event in New Hampshire two weeks ago, the former president unveiled a list of roughly 50 endorsements from Granite State Republicans.

While DeSantis remains on the 2024 sidelines, he’s expected to launch a presidential campaign in the coming weeks.

The governor said last week that he’ll decide ‘relatively soon’ whether he will launch a 2024 GOP presidential campaign.

DeSantis, who won an overwhelming 19-point gubernatorial re-election victory last November, said at a news conference last Friday marking the end of Florida’s legislative session, ‘I felt very confident going into November ’22 we were gonna do very well, but you really had to put up or shut up on that.’

Asked about his 2024 plans, the governor said, ‘What happens in the future? We’ll get on that relatively soon. You either gotta put or shut up on that as well. So we’ll see.’

But behind the scenes, he’s already made plenty of moves toward launching a campaign, including beefing up staff in Tallahassee. And the past couple of months, he’s made campaign-style stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to vote in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday blamed President Biden for the lack of progress so far in a deal that would allow the government to borrow more money once it hits the debt ceiling in early June.

Biden, McCarthy and other congressional leaders were scheduled to meet on Friday to talk about a possible deal to increase the borrowing limit and meet the GOP demand of reducing federal spending. But that meeting was pushed until next week, and McCarthy said the delay is because the White House isn’t budging.

‘I have not seen from there a seriousness of the White House that they want a deal,’ McCarthy told reporters Thursday. ‘It seems like they want a default more than they want a deal.’

McCarthy’s message is a sign that the two sides still have a ways to go before anything close to a deal can be reached. Democrats have insisted on a ‘clean’ debt ceiling increase so the government can pay its bills after June 1, while Republicans are seeking a spending cut of about $150 billion before they can agree to more debt.

The stalemate has the potential to roil financial markets as the deadline gets closer, although both sides have insisted that a default on the U.S. debt will not happen.

McCarthy said staff members have met over the last two days, but said there was not enough progress to warrant holding the Friday meeting with leaders.

‘We think it’s productive for the staff to meet again,’ McCarthy said, adding that both parties agreed to the delay.

‘The White House didn’t cancel the meeting,’ McCarthy said. ‘All of the leaders decided it’s probably the best of our interest to let the staff meet again before we get back together.’

Just two days ago, Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other leaders agreed to hold staff level talks on how to raise the debt ceiling before the government is unable to pay its current obligations by early June. But even then, the White House made it clear it wanted to keep talks about the debt ceiling separate from talks about spending cuts.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday afternoon that talks from earlier in the week didn’t get very far, and said he didn’t have a readout of how Wednesday and Thursday talks had gone.

‘Yesterday and then today, whether they’re making progress, I don’t know,’ Emmer said. ‘But they’re still meeting and there’s a plan for a second meeting, at least of the speaker and the president.’

‘I assume based on what I’ve heard, that they were trying to say that they don’t like some things in the Republican plan without offering solutions,’ Emmer added.

‘I would say everybody is on their own. But right now the only deal that is out there is the deal that Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans passed,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘If Chuck Schumer could pass a debt ceiling proposal in the Senate, great, then you just have our conference — and Let’s hammer it out. But he can’t because they don’t have the votes to do that.’

California’s reparations task force is pushing for the state to end cash bail and the prosecution of low-level crimes as part of its campaign to pressure the Golden State to make amends for slavery and anti-Black racism. 

The task force, which was created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, formally approved last weekend its final recommendations to the California Legislature, which will decide whether to enact the measures and send them to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

The recommendations included several proposals related to criminal justice, including the elimination of cash bail.

‘The cash bail system is at the core of many of the class and race-based inequities in the criminal legal system,’ the task force wrote in its proposal. ‘The task force accordingly recommends that the legislature take all steps necessary to definitively end cash bail.’

Democrats and progressive prosecutors across the country have in recent years taken steps to end cash bail, arguing it’s unfair to low-income people who can’t afford it. According to the committee’s final report outlining its proposals, a cash bail system allows those with resources to return to their homes and jobs while others remain in jail before their trials despite the presumption of innocence.

‘Pretrial detention can last months and even years, during which incarcerated individuals suffer countless harms, including deteriorating mental and physical health, risk of sexual violence and lasting trauma,’ the task force wrote. ‘These harms exert significant pressure on defendants to accept plea bargains in order to be released from custody rather than fighting the charges at trial.’

Many Republicans and other critics counter that bail helps keep people from committing crimes and that eliminating it will only incentivize more criminal behavior. A recent study found that criminal offenders let out with low bail or at no cost under zero-bail policies re-offended more often than those who posted bail.

Still, the Newsom-backed panel says racial disparities persist in pretrial detention outcomes, arguing the setting of bail hurts Black defendants more than White defendants. 

As a result, the committee wrote that California should codify ‘a presumption of pretrial release in all criminal cases,’ increase funding for ‘non-law enforcement pretrial services agencies to improve pretrial release support programs,’ and implement a ‘statewide zero bail schedule.’ Additionally, the task force calls for the legislature to create a framework for compensating people held before trials who were later acquitted or exonerated.

The task force’s proposal to eliminate cash bail appears to be part of a broader push to lessen penalties for criminals. Indeed, later in its report, the committee outlines what it describes as ‘overpolicing’ of Black Americans before calling for California to stop prosecuting low-level crimes.

‘Given the devastating impacts of this kind of over-policing, the task force recommends that the legislature prohibit law enforcement from criminally enforcing public disorder infractions and other low-level crimes,’ it wrote. 

‘Instead, a public health and safety institution, without criminal arrest or prosecution powers, would enforce prohibitions such as sleeping on the sidewalk, fare evasion, spitting on the train and similar transit-related or other public disorder violations that criminalize poverty.’

The task force goes on to propose those arrested or criminally prosecuted for such violations should be allowed to sue for damages or automatically receive a damages payout. Similarly, the report calls for the legislature to establish a way to compensate those previously convicted of loitering with intent to commit prostitution.

Such proposals wouldn’t be new for California, which has in recent years pursued several initiatives deemed soft on crime by critics. 

The state, for example, has changed crimes like theft of goods under $950 and drug possession from felonies to misdemeanors, reducing California’s prison population by 13,000 inmates. Prisoners are also able to shorten their sentences through good behavior.

In recent years, lawmakers in California have voted to limit gang-related sentence enhancements, allow loitering related to prostitution and automatically seal conviction and arrest records for most offenders not convicted of another felony within a four-year period. A bill under consideration would prevent police from using K-9s for arrests or crowd control.

The task force additionally recommends the legislature create a system to pay California inmates a ‘fair market value’ for their labor while in prison. These were among a host of other proposals related to criminal justice contained in the report — from abolishing the death penalty to abolishing certain legal protections for police officers that shield them from liability in many cases while carrying out their law enforcement duties.

The recommendations are part of an effort by the task force to remedy what the panel describes as an ‘unjust legal system’ toward Black Californians.