Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar is already preparing to work with incoming border czar Tom Homan to improve border security.
Cuellar, whose district borders Mexico, argued on behalf of working with Homan as his fellow Democrats prepared to openly defy his support for mass deportations. Although Cuellar said he would like to see more details on border policy, he emphasized there are already plenty of things that can be done right now.
"We can deport people quickly under Title A, we can do ‘stay in Mexico,’ we can do so many things on policies that can work right away," Cuellar said Tuesday. "In fact, today, I was communicating with Tom, and we talked about getting together sometime when I get back to D.C. in the next week or so, and I think we can find a lot of common ground."
Cuellar added that he reached out to Homan himself, who was also open to discussions.
"That tells me that Tom knows what needs to work, and I can give him my experience. It's interesting Tom and I are talking to each other. We might not agree on everything, but certainly we can agree to deport quickly the criminals, the national security folks, the 1.3 million final deportation people that have a final deportation order and are still here," he said. "Some of the recent crossers are some of the folks we need to look at. So, there’s a lot of things that I think we can do, and certainly Mexico has done a lot, but they can do much, much, much more stopping fentanyl and stopping people from coming in."
Cuellar encouraged his fellow Democrats to speak with Homan on the border, emphasizing that there are things both parties can agree on when it comes to border security.
"I told some of the Democrats, you can agree on deporting criminals, right? Some of them hesitated. Some of them hesitated. And I told them that would be a mistake if Democrats cannot even agree to deport criminals," Cuellar said.
He also believed President-elect Trump’s threat of tariffs against Mexico will ultimately motivate the country to help with negotiations on the border.
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"Well, let me put it this way: Laredo’s the largest port; we handle 40% of all the trade between the U.S. and Mexico. I know this is a way to negotiate, get some leverage. I know that Mexico will come to the table," he responded.
"But nobody wants a 25 percent tariff on them, and the Mexicans are threatening to do the same thing, and we don’t want to get into that," Cuellar said. "But I think this will definitely get Mexico to the table so we can solve the problem about immigration and fentanyl."
Cuellar has been a frequent critic of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party for ignoring and sometimes exacerbating the border crisis and dismissing migrants overwhelming border cities.
