photo by: Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, the 1st District congressman from Kansas, says he supports federal legislation addressing border security and work permit challengs of immigration, defining sports participation based on gender and creating a national reciprocity for concealed-gun licensees.

Topeka — U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann stands as an absolutist on deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally who engaged in criminal activity, but he prefers to temper enthusiasm for a federal crackdown that would unnecessarily weaken the state’s agriculture economy.

Mann is a Republican who easily won reelection in November to a third term in Congress in the 1st District, which includes Lawrence. He said the porous national border was a crisis that warranted aggressive action to stem the tide of millions of unauthorized immigrants. The quest to fortify the U.S. border was a fundamental issue in the 2024 election and results demonstrated voters’ eagerness to address longstanding problems of unauthorized immigration, he said.

He said rooting out people in the U.S. without authorization who are engaged in criminal activity, including drug and human trafficking, should be a priority in the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

In addition, Mann said, Congress had to proceed with development of policies that protected the U.S. farm economy and other industries reliant on legally procured immigrant workers.

“We’ve got to have an immigration policy, instead of the current chaos we have, that’s orderly,” Mann said in an interview with Kansas Reflector. “We can declare and vet the people we want to come into the country, then legally allow them to do that.”

He said businesses in the massive 1st District of Kansas wanted less bureaucracy and more certainty in federal laws and regulations on issuance of permits to temporary immigrant workers. To ignore challenges of companies drawn to that supplemental labor force would be foolish, he said.

“It’s a slap in the face to people — the men and women — who have gone through the strung-out process. They do it the right way,” Mann said.

Mann said he was pleased a bipartisan majority in the U.S. House approved the Laken Riley Act, named for a college student who was killed by an undocumented immigrant from South America who had previously been cited for shoplifting in the United States.

The bill forwarded to the U.S. Senate would mandate federal detention of undocumented immigrants accused of theft and other lower-level offenses pending legal proceedings.

The legislation raised due-process concerns regarding incarceration of more individuals accused rather than convicted of crime.

All undocumented immigrants who commited a criminal offense in this country should be deported, the congressman said.

Mann said he voted for a bill approved by the U.S. House that would prohibit people designated as male at birth from participating in athletic programs designated for girls or women. The measure would define gender under the Title IX federal civil rights law based on “genetics and biology” rather than “identity,” he said.

“The overwhelming majority of folks in the 1st District of Kansas would say that women should be in women’s sports. Boys should be in boys’ sports. Boys should not be playing girls’ sports,” Mann said.

In Kansas, officials in the past reported a few transgender students had taken part in cheerleading programs. In 2023, the Republican-led Legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto to place in state law a ban on transgender athletes joining girls’ and women’s sports programs from kindergarten through college.

Kelly said such legislation was about partisan politics rather than welfare of Kansans, and the statutory prohibitions would harm the mental health of her constituents.

However, Mann said Democrats in Washington, D.C., had “caved to radical activists under the false guises of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusion’ over fairness” to females who were “robbed of scholarships and accolades” that could be earned through athletics.

In the interview, Mann praised introduction of a House bill that would create a national reciprocity law for carriers of concealed weapons who maintained a state license. It would, for example, allow Kansas permit holders to travel across state lines without fear of running afoul of statutes on concealed firearms in conflict with Kansas’ law.

“A lot of people in my district are talking about this,” Mann said. “A lot of people are frustrated.”

Mann, a former lieutenant governor, represents the Big First district stretching from the Colorado border across the state to Douglas County in eastern Kansas.

–Tim Carpenter reports for Kansas Reflector.