Only some Valley mayors spoke to Giuliani during visit

McALLEN - Rudy Giuliani may have seen the border, but he didn't take the time to learn during his visit to the Rio Grande Valley, said Mayor Richard Cortez.

Cortez, who does not publicly declare his party affiliation, said Monday he was disappointed that he had not been invited to Monday's fundraising event by Giuliani's campaign.

Campaign staffers, he said, told him that if he wanted to speak with the former New York mayor about border issues, he could buy a ticket to the luncheon fundraiser at the McAllen Country Club.

"If the only way that I have access to him is to pay, and that would go against what I believe is right for this country," Cortez said around 12:30 p.m.

Several other border mayors did attend, however, said Mission's Norberto "Beto" Salinas.

Salinas is a staunch Republican and began raising funds for Giuliani in the Valley several months ago.

"I was surprised that the mayor of McAllen was not there," Salinas said. "I think he got asked if he wanted to be a sponsor, and he didn’t want to. ... The mayor of McAllen knows that it takes a lot of money to make races.

"I paid my share of the sponsorship to meet with (Giuliani)," Salinas said.

Cortez, who has traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak against the construction of the border wall, said he would have explained to Giuliani that a fence would not keep out the vast majority of illegal immigrants.

"You can’t stop the ones who come here with legal papers and overstay, you can’t stop professional smugglers (and) you can’t stop those with good false documents" by building a fence, he said.

"We think that America can be benefited by providing more investment to our legal ports of entry … as opposed to investing in a fence that will accomplish very little at a very very high cost," Cortez said.

Salinas said he is also against the fence and used time during a small-group meeting with the candidate to stress the importance of Mexican goodwill to the Valley economy.

"I said, 'Mayor (Giuliani), I’m a mayor of a smaller city than McAllen, but we’re building a bridge to Mexico. ... There’s a lot of economic impact here from people from Mexico, and we don’t want to insult them with a fence."

"I know that maybe Arizona and New Mexico need a wall, but I don’t think Texas needs a wall," Salinas added. He said Giuliani listened to him, and explained his plan to use mostly electronic surveilance tools on much of the Texas border, rather than a physical fence.

However, "he completely didn’t say ‘I am against the wall,’" Salinas said.