DECATUR, Ala. — Representative Dale Strong was back at his home district on Tuesday for the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce's Washington Update luncheon, where he touted achievements for his first year in office and explained priorities for the year ahead.
"It's been interesting. I feel like it's been more than a year," Strong said.
The main theme of the Q&A was how Decatur is situated among the national happenings that federal officials like Strong deal with. Topics ranged from the hyper-local, - like the long desired construction of another bridge to and from the River City - to foreign policy and immigration from people coming through places on the US-Mexico border.
"What we need to do is get our dollars back here locally," Strong said of the prospective bridge construction. "You spend them, you figure out where the bridge needs to go. It's going to work out. It's going to work out. If it's easy, everybody would do it. The thing that everybody understands, we need another bridge.
Strong spoke about America's border with Mexico more than any single topic, deriding the state of immigration policies and demonizing those that do cross the border.
"They're coming in. I'm telling you, if you believe those 200-plus that I saw coming through the mountain, that they're coming for jobs. They're not; they're coming to destroy America."
In all of his answers, Strong emphasized, hard-line conservative, Republican thinking. In a media availability after the Q&A, he doubled down.
"I'll tell you this right here. The southern border is still the number one issue. 8.5 million people have crossed in this country illegally. This is the issue to down the mountain for it's time to close the border. 'Remain in Mexico,' has got to be instituted. This problem was totally created by the Biden administration. Trump had this under control - even Obama had this under control! I'll tell you this right here. I want to improve the process of those that are coming illegally and send them back to their country of origin. Right now, you can't have dialogue about asylum and coming into our country whenever you got them flooding the southern border."
When asked about his word choice when talking about migrants and immigration, at large, he didn't walk them back.
"Oh, it's charged. I promise you, the people I represent, it's charging them. You start looking at it About 98, 99% of them seek asylum and only 15% of the asylums are legit. But that's what this administration done. They've told them, 'Come across, seek asylum. We're going to turn you ... loose in America.' It doesn't work."
The House, remains in recess for the week after which Representative Strong will be back in Washington for the next legislative session, which begins January 29th. In the meantime, Strong is set to give another "Washington Update" address with the Athens-Limestone County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, January 25.