Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) slammed the Biden administration for how it is handling the unfolding border crisis and alleged that it is “purposely withholding” information on the number of migrants being released into the U.S.
When asked during the interview to react to numbers showing the border is being overwhelmed, Cuellar, whose congressional district is on the border, said the administration was not releasing the full numbers of how many migrants are being released into the U.S.
“Yeah, look, we can play with words. Is that a challenge? Or is it a crisis? Let’s look at the numbers, since August of last year, the numbers have been increasing,” he said. “In especially October, November, and December, we were hitting 70,000. In January, we had 78,000. This is again, under the Trump administration, now moving into the Biden administration. Biden might have started under Trump, but when you’re the president, you own the situation, whether it’s a success or not a success.”
“I think in February we’re going to get about 100,000. And again, I don’t care what we call it, but I can tell you this, those numbers of people that are being released, they’re purposely withholding that information,” he continued. “They’ve been told not to withhold that information. I now know that they’re bringing people from McAllen over to Laredo, processing them in Laredo, and they’re going to release them in my community. I represent the both areas, the valley and of course, part of the valley in Laredo, and I’ve seen this before. Don’t let the local community know what you’re doing, where they’re striving to bring people in from the valley, process them and Laredo, release them at a bus station. And again, I’ve seen this this before in the past.”
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TRANSCRIPT:
FOX NEWS HOST: A Democratic Texas Congressman and member of the Blue Dog coalition, Henry Cuellar. He represents a southwest border district that is seeing a surge in migrants. Thank you so much, Congressman, for being here. I want to begin with getting your reaction to something Tom Homan said in that interview, he just said that the Biden administration is facilitating illegal entry, not detaining people and not testing for COVID. Your reaction?
HENRY CUELLAR: … [these] are things that I’ve been talking about for a while. Is Border Patrol checking the the folks coming in? No. It’s all dependent on the local communities to do that, and we need to test them because otherwise, if we don’t, look what happened in 2019. This is where Greyhound dropped people off all over the place. This is under the Trump administration, when we had that particular crisis. Now, what makes it different is people are gonna be dropped all over the United States, with not being tested as they get on those Greyhound buses or airplanes.”
FOX NEWS HOST: Congressman, the White House has announced that it is sending a team to the border to assess the situation there and determine what needs to happen next. Have you been in contact with them? Have they been in contact with you? And what is it that they need to know?
CUELLAR: Well, you know, first of all, I’ve been asking them to come down, they have come down. They have not called too many people down here. So I’ve I learned from local folks that they are in Donna, Texas, and then they’re going to come to Laredo, my hometown, and then they got to go to Carrizo Springs to go see the facilities. We haven’t had an opportunity to talk to them. But I can tell you, I’m gonna have a lot of tough questions to the (DHS) secretary when he comes before Homeland Appropriations, I will get my time to ask them questions, if they’re not taking the time to talk to local folks. The problem is they’re listening to immigration activists, which is okay. But they got to listen to the local communities. And they got to listen to those men and women in green, you know, because first of all, our border patrol agents have not been vaccinated, not all of them. We have to get them vaccinated, we got to get our NGOs vaccinated, as we’re letting 1000s of people coming in. I think this February, we’re gonna get to 100,000 individuals for the month of March, I mean of February, the high point was in May of 2019. Under the Trump administration, where we hit 144,000, we’re getting to a part where it’s going to be very difficult, like it was in 2014, 2015, and 2019, except we have COVID-19 as a situation.
FOX NEWS HOST: Well, let’s take a look at some of the numbers here. This is from the border patrol reporting in the just the Rio Grande sector, unaccompanied children in that sector, and this is in comparison from fiscal year 2020 from January to fiscal year 2021. You can see that 73% increase. And right now there is this debate between critics of the Biden administration and the Biden administration over whether or not this is a crisis versus a challenge. My question to you and I asked this of a Republican Congressman, in the last hour, does matter what we call it, and where is the line between challenge and crisis?
CUELLAR: Yeah, look, we can play with words. Is that a challenge? Or is it a crisis? Let’s look at the numbers, since August of last year, the numbers have been increasing. In especially October, November, and December, we were hitting 70,000. In January, we had 78,000. This is again, under the Trump administration, not moving into the Biden administration. Biden might have started under Trump, but when you’re the president, you own the situation, whether it’s a success or not … I think in February we’re going to get about 100,000. And again, I don’t care what we call it, but I can tell you this, those numbers of people that are being released, they’re purposely withholding that information. They’ve been told not to withhold that information. I now know that they’re bringing people from McAllen over to Laredo, processing them in Laredo, and they’re going to release them in my community. I represent the both areas, the valley and of course, part of the valley in Laredo, and I’ve seen this before. Don’t let the local community know what you’re doing, where they’re striving to bring people in from the valley, process them and Laredo, release them at a bus station. And again, I’ve seen this this before in the past.