GOP Rep. Van Duyne discusses divides in House over Ukraine aid, border security

Read the Full Transcript

• Amna Nawaz:

  To discuss the divides in the House over how to handle aid to Ukraine and the border, I'm joined now by Republican Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne of Texas.

  Congresswoman, welcome to the "NewsHour." Thank you for joining us.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX):

  Thank you very much. Appreciate you having me on.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I want to begin with where Lisa Desjardins left off there and the Ukraine aid effort moving forward. You have talked before about the need for Ukraine aid.

  They will soon reach a point where they can no longer defend themselves against Russia without additional aid. Are you worried, the longer this takes, with the Republican House and the House now crafting their own bill, the more at risk you're putting Ukraine and the more you're empowering Vladimir Putin?

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  I think, if we were interested in helping Ukraine, we would have done it at the beginning of the war, instead of waiting for so long.

  Yes, that has to be a concern. But our main concern right now is making sure that we're crafting a good bill, a solid bill, a bill that's not going to put us any further into debt, and a bill that is prioritizing what's the important thing to most Americans right now, which is the border.

  So we want to make sure that, whatever we are doing, we're making — it's not just making Ukraine safe, but we have to have America safe. And when we look at the disaster that has happened in the last three years at our border, we have got to prioritize that. We're hearing that from Americans all across the country.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I want to ask you about the border piece in just a moment.

  But, specifically on Ukraine, how worried are you, again, that the longer this takes, the more at risk Ukraine is?

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  And again, we don't — we would like to be able to move faster.

  I think there's questions that a number of Republicans have asked, including what the strategy looks like, what's the timeline, what is the commitment, what is — what does winning look like. I think those are still decisions that are being made, and we're still negotiating.

  So, again — and we would like to go faster. But until those questions are answered, I think you're — you want to make sure that you have a thoughtful bill and that you're just not rushing on — because we're putting into the time frame of being between a rock and a hard place.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You mentioned wanting to see those border provisions in another bill as well. I should note that the Senate did pass a bipartisan bill that had border provisions in it, before Senate Republicans backed away from that, and then just a Ukraine and a foreign aid bill moved through the Senate.

  But you're from Texas. You know the challenges at the border. Part of this global migration trend we have been seeing, we're seeing in the U.S. too. When it comes to solving the border crisis, though, Congresswoman, why vote to impeach the homeland security secretary, rather than back a bipartisan bill that actually had some very conservative immigration reforms in it?

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  So, I want to be clear. The Senate did not pass that bill. That bill never came out of the Senate to go to the House. So it was never…

  (Crosstalk)

• Amna Nawaz:

  The border bill did not, correct.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  It did not.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It was just foreign aid that came out.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Correct.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Correct.

  So we never saw a Senate bill. We saw some text of what was being decided at the Senate side, but it never came over to the House. The House did send over a very strong bill in H.R.2 that had the provisions that codified what the Trump administration put in place, specifically, the remain-in-Mexico policy.

  It was ending catch-and-release. It was fortifying the relationships between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement and state law enforcement.

• Amna Nawaz:

  If I may, Congresswoman, as you know, the Senate did not take that bill up.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Correct. Correct.

  And that's what I'm saying. You asked what the House is doing to be able to look at border, what has to happen. And I think what has to happen is, that bill needs to be taken up. H.R.2 needs to be taken up. I think, if the Democrats and the Senate were serious about border security, they would look at the provisions that were in that bill, they would recognize that this is not just a thoughtful bill, but this is a bill that is based on solutions that had worked in the past.

  The part of the Senate bill that was — we really did not think was — it was going to be dead on arrival was the allowance of 5,000 to 8,500 people, illegal immigrants coming into our country a day. Under the Biden administration, we have seen record numbers.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Congresswoman, if I may, actually, the automatic trigger to shut down the border was when it actually reached the threshold of 5,000 a day…

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Actually, the 5,000 — yes, that's not actually — that's not accurate. It was on 5,000 on average for a seven-day period, for a week period, but it was 8,500 in one single day.

  So, if you do the math, it's nearly two million people coming over a year.

  (Crosstalk)

• Amna Nawaz:

  Recently, we have been seeing those numbers. The border would have been shut down had that kind of automatic trigger been in place.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  So, had they been looking at H.R.2, what we saw under H.R.2, when those policies were in place, was less than 1,000 people coming in over our border every day, as opposed to 5,000.

  If they just were to take the policies that the Biden administration from day one took off the table, we could already have had a secure border and we would not see the ridiculous, record numbers of people coming into our border every day and what we have seen since the Biden administration took over.

  But you asked the question about Mayorkas and why it was necessary to impeach him. The American people want to make sure that we are holding these folks accountable. When you have seen 10 million — actually, I learned today from Chad Wolf it's over 11 million people have come into our country illegally in the last three years.

  When you look at the deaths as a result of fentanyl coming in, over 110,000 dead Americans, five dead Texans every single day as a result of this coming over our border, we have got to get serious about border security and about…

  (Crosstalk)

• Amna Nawaz:

  Congresswoman, if I may. I'm sorry. I apologize for the interruption. I'm not sure about the 11 million number or the source for that. That's not what we have seen lining up with Border Patrol numbers.

  And, also, as I'm sure you have noted before and seen before…

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Yes, we had a briefing today. Yes, we had a briefing today with Chad Wolf, and that was the number that he had quoted.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Fentanyl largely comes in through legal ports of entry and is — the majority of it is brought in by American citizens, not from…

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  And I know. And we say that, because that's what we're catching. We're catching the drugs that are coming over through legal — through our ports of entry.

  But the fact is, we have absolutely no idea how much of that drug is coming through illegally that we don't catch. And I think it's a huge leap of assumption that we're saying, oh, no, it's only being brought in by Americans and it's only being brought in at ports of entry. That's absolutely incorrect.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Well, these are U.S. government and Border Patrol numbers, figures and characterizations.

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Yes, but that's absolutely — it's only catching what's coming through those ports of entry.

  (Crosstalk)

• Amna Nawaz:

  Which is the vast majority of the fentanyl coming into the country right now.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  But you have no idea. But that's the problem, is, you don't know. You don't know.

  We're assuming that the getaways that are coming through, that that's — they're not being caught. So the answer is we really have no idea how much it's coming in that we're not even seeing.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Congresswoman, can I ask you? Immigration has obviously become a leading campaign concern and an issue for former President Donald Trump.

  But we know that he didn't want Republicans to back any kind of deal and not to give President Biden a so-called win. Is it fair to say that Donald Trump is calling the shots on what Republicans in Congress will or won't do right now?

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Not that I'm aware of. I never got a phone call from the president asking me not to support a bill.

  I think what we want is our border secure. And what we saw from the bill that was coming out of the Senate is, it was going to normalize the record rates of people coming over. It was going to further incentivize people coming over by giving them work permits. It would not have secured our border. It would not have prevented illegal immigration. It would only have made the problem worse.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Republican Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne from Texas joining us tonight.

  Congresswoman, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne:

  Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.