Tuesday, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) sounded the alarm on the problem at the United States’ southern border.
During an appearance on Fox News, Cuellar said it is “not a crisis yet, but it’s going to get there very soon” because of the increasing number of people coming in coupled with the coronavirus pandemic. He also voiced his concern for those with legal visas not being allowed to enter while undocumented immigrants are being let in.
“It is not a crisis yet, but it will become a crisis,” Cuellar warned. “The numbers have been increasing, and as your report just said a few minutes ago, the numbers are just increasing every day. The number of unaccompanied kids, the number of families who are coming in are just increasing every day. In my district, just a couple of days ago, 166 people. And it goes on, and just different numbers are going up. So, it’s not a crisis yet, but it’s going to get there very soon.”
“The snapshot right now — is it a crisis? No. Is it getting there? Yes,” he added. “You add COVID-19 on top of that. You add a lot of the border communities are not getting the vaccines fast enough. The fact they aren’t letting Mexican legal visa holders come across, but they’re letting undocumented people in, that does cause a concern to me and a lot of my border community leaders down there. So yes, and if you look at the Border Patrol, they’re operating at 25%.”
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