February 23, 2025

Gosar Announces Congressional Art Competition

I am excited to announce the 2025 Congressional Art Competition for students of Arizona’s 9^th Congressional District!  Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide high school visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district. Since the Artistic Discovery competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated.

Like previous years, winners will be announced at a ceremony and recognized for their creativity.  Scholarship opportunities will be available for first, second and third place winners. Additionally, the People’s Choice Award will be given to the student who receives the most votes in an online contest hosted by my office. This year’s award ceremony will be held at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum located at 21 N. Frontier Street, Wickenburg, AZ on Saturday, May 10^th at 10:00 A.M.

This competition is open and extended to all students within Arizona’s 9^th Congressional District for those in grades 8^th-12^th including those in homeschool, online schools, or alternative learning programs. 

The Congressional Art Competition is a great opportunity to encourage artistic talent from Arizona and across the country.  I cordially invite you to participate.  More details can be found in the flyer above or by clicking here.

Gosar Announces 2024 Congressional App Challenge Winner

This week I was pleased to announce that Daniel Jian from Litchfield Park is the winner of the 2024 Congressional App Challenge for Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District.  Daniel is a student at the Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center and his app, called MediPrompt, addresses a significant need for managing medication schedules, particularly for individuals who rely on timely reminders due to health conditions.

Each year, the Congressional App Challenge allows students in our community to hone their coding skills and showcase their creativity. The Congressional App Challenge is a public initiative to encourage young people to learn how to code in an effort to inspire creativity and encourage interest in STEM education. In the first seven years of the competition, the CAC has inspired over 40,000 students across all 50 states to create an original app.

I’m very impressed by the talent and ingenuity demonstrated by these students.  Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s competition and congratulations to Daniel!

Illegal Border Crossings Plummet Under Trump Administration

This week, the Department of Homeland Security released new data showing that illegal aliens crossing the border last month were 90% lower than the record-setting worst month of the Biden Administration.  Illegal border crossings have hit lows not seen in decades. Why?  Because on his first day in office, President Trump declared a national emergency at the border, deployed the military to secure the border, ended catch and release and the U.S. Border Patrol is empowered once again to enforce the law. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security announced that arrests of criminal illegal immigrants have doubled under President Trump.

Here are a few more things President Trump has done in just the first 30 days to secure the border:

• Shut down the “CBP One” app, which “paroled” more than one million illegal immigrants into the country.
• Terminated all taxpayer-funded public benefits for illegal aliens.
• Ramped up deportations of criminal illegal aliens.
• President Trump began transferring criminal illegal aliens to Guantanamo Bay ahead of their repatriation back to their own countries.
• President Trump re-established the successful “Remain in Mexico” policy.
• President Trump restarted construction of the border wall.
• Officially declared Tren de Aragua, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, and the Michoacán Family as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
• Mexico announced a deployment of 10,000 troops to the border to combat illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, while Canada announced a flurry of measures to combat fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking following President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on the two countries.
• Implemented an additional 10% tariff on imports from China in order to stem the flow of illegal aliens and fentanyl.
• Ordered an end to birthright citizenship.
• Filed suit against the State of New York and some of its elected officials over their willful failure to follow federal immigration law and announced that it will take action against so-called “sanctuary cities” for their obstruction of U.S. law.
• “Clawed back” tens of millions of dollars in funds paid by rogue FEMA officials to house illegal aliens in luxury New York City hotels.
• Reinstated the death penalty for federal capital crimes.

President Donald Trump took office just 34 days ago, but has already accomplished more than most presidents do in their entire term and is making good on his promise to secure our border.

Big Crowd Joins Me for “Coffee with the Congressman”

This weekend, a big crowd of folks joined me for a cup of java and a good conversation in Lake Havasu City.  Many thanks to everyone who turned out, including Mohave County Supervisor Sonny Borrelli. ☕☕

It’s Mail Time!

📬 I receive thousands of letters each week and I appreciate hearing from everyone. Here are a few letters I received this week:

📨 Rhiannon S. from Goodyear, AZ wrote in:

I urge you to take immediate action to block all funding for the detention of immigrants at Guantánamo Bay. The idea of imprisoning undocumented immigrants at Guantánamo Bay is as cruel as it is reckless. This facility is synonymous with human rights violations, indefinite detention, and the worst abuses of the post-9/11 era. This policy is also a financial disaster. Expanding Guantánamo for immigrant detention will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, money that could be spent on real immigration solutions, not mass incarceration. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to expand or support immigrant detention. The United States should be working toward humane immigration solutions, not reviving the worst policies of the past.

✍ Rhiannon, On January 29, 2025, President Trump signed a memorandum ordering the detention of the most dangerous illegal criminal aliens in Guantanamo Bay.  President Trump also directed the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide extra detention space for high-priority criminal illegal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.  This is a welcome change.  Under the Biden-Harris administration, our borders were porous and criminal aliens flooded into our country without so much as a slap on the wrist.  Aliens who violate our laws must not be allowed to remain in the United States.

As I noted above, during his first month in office, President Trump has taken a number of bold executive actions to restore our national sovereignty and curb Biden-Harris border malfeasance.  

You contend returning criminal illegal aliens to their home countries is “cruel” and “reckless.”  What is truly cruel and reckless was opening our borders to over 13 million illegal aliens, having thousands of citizens victimized by their crime, and having over 100,000 Americans die each year since 2021 (when Biden took over) from fentanyl poisoning.  What is cruel is forcing the American taxpayers to pay for transportation, hotels and lodging, food, medical care and schooling for millions of illegal aliens—all while our country is broke and we suffer among the highest tax burdens in the world.  What is reckless is paying Mexican drug cartels billions of taxpayer dollars so the cartels could engage in human trafficking.  

I have long said that if we have no borders, we have no country.  Until our borders are secured again, temporary moratoriums on federal immigration programs are not only warranted but necessary.  I applaud President Trump’s round-the-clock work to shore up our southern flank; strike deals with other countries to cooperate with the enforcement of our border laws; and protect American citizens from violent foreign threats.  I will continue to work with President Trump to reverse the long-running abuses of our immigration system and make America safe again.

Cynthia F. from Bullhead City, AZ shares:

📨 The American people deserve a government that works for them—not one riddled with waste, fraud, and inefficiency. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created to root out abuse and bring accountability to Washington. Yet, an unelected judge has overstepped his authority, blocking DOGE from doing its job and violating Article II of the Constitution.

I urge you to stand with DOGE, fight against this unconstitutional judicial overreach, and defend the American people’s right to a government that is transparent, accountable, and free from corruption. 

✍ Dear Cynthia, the names of most agencies in our vast federal bureaucracy cannot be found in our Constitution.  We forget that many of the functions our federal government now performs used to be taken care of at the state and local levels.  And worse, each function we cede from the private sector to the government transfers with it the authority of law.  President Trump has taken bold executive actions to expose waste, fraud and abuse, roll back some of these unconstitutional government functions and return power to the People’s hands.  

The Left hates this.  Unable to win at the ballot box, Democrats have instead recruited activist judges to ramp up their attack and stand in the way of the president’s America First agenda.  Why?  Because Donald Trump, by opening the blinds to let some light in, is exposing all the corruption in the federal government one agency at a time.

If President Trump refuses to surrender, in the midst of all this engineered pushback, he will succeed in doing what one administration after another has attempted to do for over 50 years without a shred of success: shrink the size of government.

On February 9, 2025, Vice President Vance issued the following observation: “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.  If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.  Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”  I agree with this statement.  But at the end of the day, my opinion does not matter; the Constitution does.  

The framers of the Constitution intended to establish a system of checks and balances that would prevent any one branch from usurping authority from the others. However, when unelected activist federal judges exceed their mandate and interpret laws expansively, they are infringing upon the prerogatives of President Trump and are hindering his authority to govern. Activist federal judges should not be the primary arbiter of policy issues that were designed by the Founders to be addressed through the legislative or executive branches. By extending their personal beliefs and influence into areas reserved for the executive branch these activist judges are engaging in judicial tyranny: usurpation of power to prevent the normal and lawful functioning of the government.

Whether left-wing activist judges masquerading as arbiters of sound jurisprudence like it or not, Donald J. Trump is President of the United States.  Article III of our Constitution tells them how to do their jobs; Article II tells the President how to do his.  Despite the rhetoric from the left, these activist judges not DOGE, are creating the real constitutional crisis.  

Tweet of the Week:

Photo of the Week:

📸 Pat Newbert from Chino Valley, AZ sent in this photo of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Spectacular, Pat.  Thanks so much for sharing.

Do you want the chance for your photograph to be featured as our “Picture of the Week?”   If so, send your best shots along with a brief description to Anthony.foti@mail.house.gov.  Remember to include your name and where you live.

Gosar in the News and Other Must-Read Stories:

📰 Washington Times: Catch and release is over, DHS says; January saw lowest border numbers since summer of 2020

🗞 Fox News: HUD recovers eye-popping sum after launching DOGE task force

📰 AP: Russia and US agree to work toward ending Ukraine war in a remarkable diplomatic shift

🗞 New York Post: Trump signs executive order cutting off all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants

📰 National Pulse: Trump Proposes Returning 20% of DOGE Savings to Americans.

⚠ Warning!!  The Gosar Weekly Newsletter is meant for discerning readers with above average intelligence.  We link to interesting stories.  We get stories a couple different ways: Google alerts, a third-party aggregator and sometimes readers send stuff.  We don’t vouch for every publication or every author.  If we link to a story, it is because of that story. The views expressed in any of the publications do not represent any promotion, endorsement or reflection of Congressman Gosar’s views.  While we try our best, we cannot guarantee every news organization spouting hatred, animosity or divisiveness will be filtered from appearing in the Gosar Weekly Newsletter.  We will endeavor to prevent that from happening by never linking to Fake News organizations including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Rolling Stone, the Arizona Republic, the Arizona Mirror, Media Matters or the New Republic.