Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas., told MSNBC host Al Sharpton during an interview that President Biden and the Democratic Party are not as competent at securing the border as Republicans and former President Trump.
Republican governors, including Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, have sent buses of asylum seekers to Democratic-controlled states and cities, a tactic Republicans have argued is necessary to show the severity of the border crisis to Democrat-run states. A massive influx of would-be-illegal immigrants have learned to use asylum law to avoid deportation and enter the United States legally as so-called "asylum seekers," and as they are being sent in droves to major cities, many Democrats have been warning the resulting crisis is unsustainable.
Biden and many Democrats have touted a deal that is referred to by some as a bipartisan compromise to secure the border. Many Republicans argue, however, that not only is this deal insufficient, but Biden already has the necessary ability to secure it, and instead want to pass his own legislation.
Sharpton commented on Abbott’s migrant busing operation to Cuellar, "Congressman, as we see, many mayors are now saying that they cannot handle the influx of migrants into their cities - Chicago, LA, New York - because your governor is sending migrants there."
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He went on to recall a recent "brutal attack by migrants on New York City police officers" that made headlines across the country and asked, "Do you think that if the Democrats use the fact that we are out of control in places - and now there are criminal attacks - would move the ‘law and order’ party to at least deal with the border with some kind of border legislation?"
"Yes, so that’s a very good point. Some of us that live at the border, we’ve been seeing what New York and other places have been seeing for a long time, and with all due respect, New York and Chicago and Washington, D.C. and Denver are just getting a drop of what we see at the border," Cuellar replied.
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"But now this feeling is being felt or this understanding is being felt in other cities. That’s one of the reasons why Democrats are getting off their comfort zones and doing some things on the Senate bill that I would have thought that they would never have done some years ago, but because of what’s happening in their own backyards, they’re willing to get off the comfort zone and say, ‘Let’s take some tough measures.’"
Cuellar then called for Democrats to stop demonizing border security and learn from Trump and the GOP on this specific issue.
"One more thing," Cuellar said. "I’m a Democrat, I want Democrats to say we can have border security and still respect immigrant's rights. Not too many Democrats talk about border security, and that’s one issue — politically, if I can move from policy to politics, that’s one issue that the Republicans and Donald Trump are doing better than Biden and Democrats. On border security."