Michigan Dem congressional candidate claims to be tough on the border but supported sanctuary cities in the past
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— In a new ad, Democratic House candidate Curtis Hertel Jr.
claims to be tough on the border.But a resurfaced clip of Hertel supporting sanctuary-city policies in Michigan’s capital tells a very different story.In the spot, the former state senator appears in a T-shirt mowing his lawn.
“You wanna know what’s wrong with politics? Egos.Big egos.
They wanna look good.But I’d rather do some good,” he says.
“And when Democrats were weak on border security, I called them out.” The advertisement is Hertel’s attempt to win swing voters in Michigan’s hotly contested 7th Congressional District by shifting to the political center on immigration.Asked when the candidate challenged fellow Democrats, Hertel’s spokesman Sam Kwait-Spitzer told The Post, “He wrote a letter to President Biden calling out his slow response on the border.” Hertel sent Biden a letter in May urging him to reimplement Trump-era immigration policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” which required asylum-seekers to wait north of the border while American courts processed their requests.“It is imperative that both parties collaborate on pragmatic, bipartisan immigration reforms that enhance border security while providing a pathway to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants,” Hertel told Biden in the letter.In endorsing Trump-era policies, veteran Democrat Curtis Hertel is taking a page from Kamala Harris’ book by rebranding himself a centrist.But Hertel’s Republican opponent, Tom Barrett, who narrowly lost the 2022 race for the district, says he doubts the sincerity of the Dem’s claim to be pragmatic about the border.“It was done for strictly political purposes to gain or to be able to claim something about the border,” Barrett told The Post.“Because he sees that this is becoming a politically toxic issue for him.”“Curtis Hertel’s entire history is in stark contrast with some sham claim that he has about standing up to his part...