Javier Villalobos, the Republican mayor of McAllen, Texas, expressed concern that President-elect Donald Trump’s stance on illegal immigration could cause economic damage to the United States.
While the mayor indicated that he favored Trump’s push to first remove violent criminals who have come into the country illegally, he worried that many of the people who could face deportation are “productive” workers helping “our economy stay strong.”
“I’ve always said it: There’s a lot of people that can be very productive, and we should try to help them come here and produce for us and assist their families,” Villalobos said during a recent interview with WFAA, a local Texas news outlet. “Now, if it’s people that have issues, criminal or otherwise, then we definitely don’t want that. But there’s a lot of people that I know can help us, that can help our economy stay strong.”
Villalobos became mayor of Hildago County’s majority-Hispanic city of McAllen, which lies in the Rio Grande Valley, a border hot spot, over three years ago, marking a stark political shift in the once-impenetrable Democratic bastion. Villalobos is the first registered Republican elected mayor of the south Texas city this century.
The mayor echoed some of Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy’s recent concerns about mediocrity in U.S. culture during his latest interview when he said that “the work ethic of the American people is not what it used to be.” However, unlike Ramaswamy, who argued that “lazy” cultural trends could be reversed to bring back a resurgence of the American workforce, Villalobos favored allowing some illegal immigrants facing deportation to continue filling a labor gap in the country.
“You have people that are productive, that are workers right now, that companies need to produce or to help them in whatever capacity that will affect a lot of the times,” the mayor said. “I’ve said it before that the work ethic of the American people is not what it used to be, and a lot of the times that these immigrants are the ones that assist, and I’ve seen it over and over.”
Villalobos said he did not think Trump’s mass deportation effort would affect his area “much,” as many illegal immigrants quickly pass through his city to find better-paying jobs. However, he noted that the president-elect’s threat to place massive tariffs on Mexico and Canada if the countries fail to tighten border security measures could have a harmful impact on the local economy’s vibrant import and export ecosystem.
“The state of Texas did a study of how the traffic flows through the Rio Grande Valley,” Villalobos said. “Within a couple of days, trucks that pass through here are throughout the whole United States. They’re delivering. They’re doing whatever they need to do and come back. So, I know that if things were to slow down, it won’t just slow down the Rio Grande Valley, it will slow down, I think, the whole economy.”
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While Trump may face pushback from Villalobos after he assumes office in January 2025, enthusiasm for the president-elect has grown significantly in the mayor’s county over the past four years.
During the 2024 presidential election, Trump flipped Hildago County red, improving his performance among voters by 10 percentage points compared to his 2020 showing, according to NBC exit polls.