TUCSON, Arizona (Border Report) – U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Arizona, has seen the strain of constant border migrant surges on people around him.
He has seen frustrated Border Patrol agents spend more time in front of a screen processing asylum-seekers than stopping gang members from coming across the border. He has learned of individuals linked to the Tren de Aragua gang charged with crimes in the U.S. after being released at the border.
And he goes to church with immigrants whose desire to become American citizens is on hold as asylum petitions overwhelm court dockets.
“I know a man in church from Egypt. He’s been on a work permit for a long time. He submitted his paperwork (for permanent residence) and it got pushed back because the system is overwhelmed,” said Ciscomani, whose family waited many years to legally immigrate from Mexico and obtain U.S. citizenship. “When people like him see what’s going on at the border […] It’s discouraging at best, but it also sends the wrong message: Why would people want to go through the process when they can just claim asylum and that seems to give them more success?”
Ciscomani is running for reelection in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District on the strength of leadership experience as vice chair of the Arizona-Mexico Commission and knowledge of border dynamics, which he describes as three “buckets”: Trade, immigration and national security.
He’s being challenged by former state senator and state representative Kirsten Engel, Green Party standard-bearer Athena Eastwood and independent write-in candidate Luis Pozzolo.
Engel, who lost to Ciscomani two years ago by fewer than 6,000 votes, has managed to bring abortion rights to the forefront of a race that the Cook Political Report on Thursday still rated as a toss-up.
The two candidates debated earlier this month in Phoenix, with Engel criticizing her opponent for sinking a bipartisan border bill earlier this year allegedly spurred by former President Trump’s opposition to it. Ciscomani said Trump never called him and that he makes his own decisions.
Engel has been emphatic on reproductive rights at a time more than 800,000 Arizonans signed a petition to have a state proposition on the Nov. 5 ballot banning public entities from restricting abortion before the fetus can survive outside the womb.
“Every woman, every person has to have the freedom to make their own health care decisions with their doctor, with their family and that is not what we have. I’m going to fight to protect reproductive rights,” Engel said at the debate.
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District extends from the Tucson hub to Cochise County – one of the busiest migrant smuggling corridors on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Elisabeth Tyndall, chair of the Cochise County Democratic Party, said Democrats are excited about Engel and the possibility of flipping the district blue.
“She is fantastic. She is a teacher, a mom, and I feel she has a really good opportunity to win,” Tyndall told Border Report. “Having her representing us in D.C. is going to be huge for reproductive rights. It will be huge for the border bill.”
Tyndall said immigrants have been a positive influence for the state’s economy, starting businesses and contributing to the tax base. As far as illegal immigration, “Republicans like to bring it out when it’s election time, but they don’t actually fix the problem,” she said.
Ciscomani said one of his legislative priorities remains to streamline immigration laws so that lawful immigrants including those who petition for work visas can get a resolution faster. He said he’s also in favor of legalizing migrants brought into the country as children — the “Dreamers” — as long as no unrelated legislation is attached to a bill.
“People like me, like others who have grown up in this region, it breaks our heart to see what it’s becoming, but it’s not too late to turn this around,” he said of illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling. “We can still have an updated, robust immigration system that tackles the needs that we have as a nation and gives people the chance to come to this free country to pursue that American dream so we can have shared prosperity and also a secure border. Without a secure border, trade and commerce suffers. There is no question we must secure the border.”
Border Report was unable to contact Eastwood. Records show she won the Green Party primary on July 30 with 26 votes cast.
Pozzolo ran as a Republican candidate in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in 2022. He lost to incumbent U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., by a margin of 126,418 votes to 69,444 in that election. He is now running as an independent in the 6th Congressional District.
In a 2022 candidates’ forum sponsored by Arizona Public Media, Pozzolo said he was a businessman concerned about excessive government spending and a border he characterized as “out of control.” In a post on X this week, he complained about the state of the economy. “I trust my grocery bill to tell me the truth about the economy, not the media,” he tweeted.
He identified himself as the son of a lawful immigrant from Uruguay and paid homage to the lawful interaction between U.S. and Mexican communities. But he expressed concern about drugs and criminal activity.
Read: Read More