INTERVIEW: Rep. Brandon Gill’s town hall blitz highlights the GOP’s OBBB wins
THE LOWDOWN:
The Washington Reporter rode along with Rep. Brandon Gill (R., Texas) in his Texas town hall blitz through his district. At each stop, Gill gave an update on his work in Congress, the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), and took questions from constituents.
Gill told the Reporter in an exclusive interview after his Bartonville town hall that he spoke to hundreds of his constituents over the course of the day and that they see the OBBB “as a bill that codifies the president’s agenda into law.”
One prominent issue that arose across the town halls was the topic of immigrant assimilation. Gill told the Reporter that “we enjoy so many benefits of living in the greatest country in the world,” such as “the economic opportunities, the cultural benefits, and the safety of living here.”
The Texas Republican said that “you see that with some of the Islamic issues” that had been raised in the Bartonville town hall, adding that there are people coming into America from cultures “that are utterly unassimilable.”
As both the youngest Republican lawmaker in the House and the 119th Congress’s Freshman Class President, Rep. Brandon Gill (R., Texas) has quite a pair of shoes to fill as he fights for his north Texas district, for President Donald Trump, and for the GOP’s agenda in Washington.
Gill, the DC Inquirer founder-turned-House member, isn’t just filling them — he’s sprinting in them.
The Washington Reporter rode along with Gill in his Texas town hall blitz through his district, stopping in Lewisville, Little Elm, Gainesville, Decatur, and ending at the Bartonville Town Hall. At each stop, Gill gave an update on his work in Congress, the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), and took questions from constituents.
Gill told the Reporter in an exclusive interview after his Bartonville town hall that he spoke to hundreds of his constituents over the course of the day and that they see the OBBB “as a bill that codifies the president’s agenda into law.”
“It allows us to execute on all the things that we ran on, whether it’s border security, tax policy, or repealing the Green New Deal,” Gill said. “That’s exactly what they elected us to do.”
“So the response has been unanimously positive,” Gill added.
One prominent issue that arose across the town halls was the topic of immigrant assimilation. Gill told the Reporter that “we enjoy so many benefits of living in the greatest country in the world,” such as “the economic opportunities, the cultural benefits, and the safety of living here.”
“And all of that prosperity that we enjoy sits on a cultural foundation that requires social trust and cultural cohesion,” Gill said. “And mass migration, whether it’s legal or illegal, whenever you don’t have assimilation, it undermines that foundation.”
“Whenever you’re bringing in hundreds of thousands of people from Somalia, for instance, to go live in the Midwest, and they decide they don’t want to assimilate, they don’t want to adopt our culture,” Gill continued. “That fundamentally transforms America’s social fabric, and it undermines all of the things that we need to make America great.”
The Texas Republican said that “you see that with some of the Islamic issues” that were raised in the Bartonville town hall, adding that there are people coming into America from cultures “that are utterly unassimilable.”
“That transforms our home,” he explained. “And our job as elected officials should be to look after our people, to make America a place that we can live and thrive and enjoy the same opportunities our parents and grandparents had, and we can’t do that with mass migration and unassimilated immigration.”
The Bartonville town hall saw questions about the planned development of EPIC City — a proposed Islamic community that would have its own shops, K-12 school, community college, mosque, and residences. The project is currently delayed and has faced local, state, and federal scrutiny over concerns of religious discrimination towards non-Muslims.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently closed its investigation into the proposed development after Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) raised concerns about the project, and Gov. Greg Abbott (R., Texas) signed a state law barring developments like EPIC City from creating “no-go zones” that restrict land sales and rentals based on religion.
However, the proposed Muslim community in North Texas raised several concerns in his district, ranging from general safety to the treatment of women by Muslims already in Texas. During the Bartonville town hall, one constituent recounted a story of Muslim men in the community refusing to speak with some local healthcare providers because they were women.
When it comes to congressional oversight of EPIC City and similar projects, Gill said that, now that the southern border has been secured “and we have solved, in many ways, the illegal immigration issue,” that America needs to “drastically reduce legal immigration.”
“And we need to be deliberately choosing who we want to come into the country,” Gill said. “So whenever you look at the rise of these Islamic centers, that’s because we let an enormous number of Muslims come into the country who are not adopting American culture and customs.”
“But the root of that is immigration, so I think that’s where we need to start,” he added.