Rep. Cuellar on border dispute between Texas, federal officials after migrant deaths

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Following the death of three migrants, including two children in the Rio Grande along the southern border, a dispute between Texas state and U.S. federal officials has intensified.

  Laura Barrón-López has more.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  The children and a woman drowned while attempting to cross into Eagle Pass, Texas, at a section of the border recently seized by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

  Texas officials physically barred federal Border Patrol agents from entering Shelby Park, where they tried to respond to a distress call, according to the Homeland Security Department. The Texas Military Department said the migrants had already drowned by the time Border Patrol agents requested access, calling claims that agents were stopped from saving the migrants' lives wholly inaccurate.

  Joining me to discuss is Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, who represents a nearby Texas border district.

  Congressman Cuellar, thank you for joining the "NewsHour."

  I should note that your colleague Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales declined an invitation for an interview tonight. But your district neighbors his.

  What have you heard from state and federal officials about the deaths of these migrants?

• Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX):

  Look, if the state would have not taken the action that they did last week, and that is bar and kick out the Border Patrol agents and remove equipment, like the scope truck that they had.

  The scope truck is a very key element that they use. That's to make sure that they survey the border, the river. And I think that scope truck would have played a very important role when they got this distress call.

  Now, because of the state's action, the governor's action, what's happening now? The state is now defending and deflecting on what happened. And if they would have just allowed them to do — the Border Patrol to do its work, we would not be talking about this story, except maybe a mother and an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy would have drowned, as other ones have drowned.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Homeland Security is now threatening legal action if they — if Border Patrol is not granted access to this Shelby Park in Eagle Pass.

  But I wanted to get your reaction from — on Governor Greg Abbott, his tweet last night. Texas Governor Greg Abbott pushed back on what you accounted as the incident. And he blamed President Biden for the drowning, specifically saying: "The fact is, the deaths are because of Biden's open border magnet."

  What's your response to Governor Abbott?

• Rep. Henry Cuellar:

  We heard the same type of defense and deflection during the Uvalde situation, and then we saw that something else happened, contrary to what the state had said.

  We're seeing the same thing here. We would not be here if the governor were — not given that instruction last week to kick out Border Patrol agents, remove their equipment to monitor the river. We would not even be here talking about that. But he's doing everything, what I call the Lone Ranger, the Lone Ranger tactic.

  That is, instead of communicating, coordinating with the Border Patrol, he's kicking out the very agency that's empowered under federal law to stop illegal migration, to provide humanitarian relief, like in this particular situation. And here we are. Here we are.

  We would not be talking about this if the governor were not taking this action. Now, I feel bad for the men and women, the Guard that are there, because, if you look at it, they really have two bosses. They have the governor and they have the president. The president can come in and federalize the Guard, and I don't know if the president's going to do that.

  But we're now playing a standoff game, when we should be working together with the state of Texas.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  You're talking about National Guard troops stationed there at Shelby Park.

  Migrant crossings surged in December, Congressman, and then they recently dropped again just this month, specifically in Eagle Pass. And you're sometimes at odds with your own party on immigration. Is there more that you think President Biden could be doing to mitigate crossings at the border?

• Rep. Henry Cuellar:

  Yes, I mean, absolutely.

  Look, you know me. I have been able to talk about what the president should be doing, and they need to get this pull factor out of the way. The reasons the numbers have gone down is not because of the governor's actions. It's not because we added border wall or the buoys. What happened, it's very simple.

  The Mexicans started doing their job in the southern part, and it's always — there's always a correlation. If the Mexico does its job and they slow down numbers, then, instead of having 10,000, 12,000 people a day, we now have 2,800, 3,100 people a day. And that's what's happening.

  It's a combination of things, but we got to take this pull factor, where people think they can take a very dangerous trek and come to the border and ask for asylum. And the bottom line is this. The bottom line is this. It's — to the migrants also, the migrants need to realize they cannot take this dangerous route.

  When you put your kids in a very dangerous situation like this mother did — and I understand people get desperate, but you cannot do this. You can see people die when they take this dangerous route.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Congressman, Senate negotiators are still working on a potential border deal. It would potentially be attached to funding for Israel and Ukraine, and it would include more money for Border Patrol, as well as significantly possibly change asylum law.

  If the Senate passes this, do you have any hope that House GOP will take it up, considering that leadership, Republican leadership there, has said that they would likely reject it?

• Rep. Henry Cuellar:

  Yes, it's interesting.

  I don't think they have read the text. I haven't seen the text. And I'm trying to keep in communication what the Senate is doing. I saw what the Republican leadership said, including Speaker Johnson, where they said that they would reject it, and they're going to wait for Trump to get elected as president.

  Seriously? If there's a crisis, you're going to wait to see if a person gets elected as president? If there's a crisis, we ought to be voting on this. And keep in mind that, the last two years, we have added $2.4 billion. That's a 15 percent increase. Except for two Republicans that are still there in the House, every single Republican voted adding money, the last two election — the last two appropriations bills.

  And now they're saying, oh, this is not good enough for us. So either it's a crisis or it's not a crisis, but you can't be against a bill that they have not even personally seen.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Congresswoman Henry Cuellar of Texas, thank you for your time tonight.

• Rep. Henry Cuellar:

  Thank you so much.