evidence: Will Hurd, a retired CIA officer and former Texas congressman, announced Thursday that he is joining the race for the Republican presidential nomination, launching a long-shot bid as a moderate alternative to GOP hard-liners. [...] Hurd was first elected to the House in 2014, when he unseated a Democrat to become the representative of a large area of the southwestern Texas border. He quickly established himself as a moderate in the party, though he aligned himself with the more conservative wing in his criticism of the FBI’s handling of an investigation into classified information Hillary Clinton had sent over a private email server when she was the secretary of state. [...] Hurd, the former representative of a border district, has also made immigration a focal point of his nascent campaign. In a recent appearance on CNN, he called for a long-term plan to streamline legal immigration, increase deportations of people who come to the country illegally and provide economic aid to Latin America to discourage people from leaving their countries.