As Clint humanitarian crisis unfolds in his district, the answer became clear: precious little.
For most politicians, actions speak louder than words. For Congressman Will Hurd, his inaction speaks for itself.
In his recent Washington Post op-ed, Hurd equivocated as always – attempting to shift focus to border funding. Hurd can say all he wants, but the truth is he votes with President Trump 95 percent of the time and famously pledged his vote to President Trump in 2020.
In recent days, the crisis taking place on the front lines of Congressman Hurd’s district came into full view.
Human rights attorneys touring the migrant children’s detention facility in Clint, Texas – smack dab in Hurd’s congressional district – described inhumane conditions there: children taking care of children, unsanitary conditions and shortages of food and water.
Rather than doing something about it, Hurd expressed his concern to reporters and moved on. His office instead opted to talk about artificial intelligence that day. A few days later, the topic was Yemen. The next day, national parks. The next day, back to Yemen.
On Saturday, more than a week after the AP’s report sparked national outrage, Hurd finally got around to taking a look at the facility in his own district.
But after his tour, Hurd ran interference for the detention center. According to local media, “Hurd disputes allegations made from lawyers describing unsanitary conditions and said he’s seen no mistreatment.”
For some reason, Hurd doesn’t have much to say about the abuses at Clint, opting instead to talk about border funding and asylum laws.
Hurd has failed to call for any hearings or investigations into the matter, leaving the moral authority to oppose the mistreatment of kids to other Members of Congress to do his job for him.
Hurd’s inaction is so obvious that one of his colleagues even sent letters to CBP and Border Patrol leadership when he would not, to get answers to the questions Hurd refuses to ask, for events taking place in a district that is not her own.
Hurd has said nothing about the incident where kids were left to fend for themselves in vans overnight “under the blistering hot Texas sun” last summer, and still hasn’t told voters whether he believes for-profit detention facilities should even exist.
Truth is, Will Hurd is trapped in a political vice of his own creation.
With his vote pledged to President Trump, Hurd can’t get too vocal about even the worst of the Trump administration’s reckless policies for fear of earning the ire of the president and his political orbit.
So, everyone knows Will Hurd’s got lots of words to share. He’ll happily pen an op-ed to talk about everything under the sun, from artificial intelligence to Saudi relations.
These days, words are about all he has.
Actions? He’ll have to get back to you on that.