Cuellar: Money Alone Can’t Fix Border if Policy Makes Border ‘a Speed Bump’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said that while funding for Border Patrol is increasing, “what’s missing is the policy.” And without a policy where people who aren’t allowed to stay in the U.S. are returned, people are “going to continue coming as long as they know that it’s only a speed bump that they’re facing at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Cuellar stated, [relevant remarks begin around 3:25] “What we’re doing in Homeland Appropriations, we’re adding monies to add more Border Patrol agents. We’re adding money for mental health. We’re adding money for a pay raise for them. We’re adding money for technology. We’re doing a lot of things to make sure that our men and women have the equipment and the technology so they can do their job. But what’s missing is the policy. If Title 42 goes away, then you can still use Title 8, if you enforce it correctly, just like Secretary Jeh Johnson did under President Obama. So, there are policies that have to be enforced. We’re going to provide the technology, we’re going to provide the equipment, more personnel. But if you don’t have the right policy there, which is very simple, repercussions, whoever is supposed to stay here under the law stays, whoever has to be returned has to be returned. All of those — I’ve been watching the show, and there [are] hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people that are coming in. They feel that there [are] no repercussions. And they’re going to continue coming as long as they know that it’s only a speed bump that they’re facing at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

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