Bipartisan Lawmakers Seeking Solution to Southern Border Crisis: House Democrat

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) spoke at the Bipartisan Representatives' conference about border patrol suicide rates at the House Triangle in Washington on Dec. 7, 2022. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

A group of lawmakers from both aisles is working together to find a solution to the “humanitarian crisis” at the southern border, a House Democrat said.

“What’s happening at our southern border is a humanitarian crisis. My colleagues, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), and I are committed to delivering bipartisan solutions to address this situation,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.

Cuellar is the vice chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

According to details of the bipartisan immigration reform deal obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, the four lawmakers are focusing on revamping the asylum laws.

Besides Cuellar’s plan, lawmakers like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) are said to be working on an immigration reform deal.

Cuellar said there need to be consequences for the illegal immigrants who violated the law.

“We now need a policy of consequences for those who are returned to Mexico or their country of origin. Under current law, there is a 5-year ban on requesting asylum for those who are returned because they did not follow the law,” Cuellar wrote. “We need this consequence applied.”

The Biden administration has been pushing for a complete overhaul of the immigration system to allow an easier pathway for illegal immigrants to enter the United States, but it may face many challenges ahead in 2023 with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) claims that nearly 1,300,000 illegal immigrants were processed under Title 8 in 2022 as asylees. That means they were either removed without their case being decided by an immigration court or allowed entry into the United States after passing a credible fear screening by the asylum officer.

“What I’m hoping is that the administration can have all these migrants that want to ask for asylum do it in an early pathway, through an online portal or entry,” Cuellar told The Epoch Times. “If they come in between ports then the administration can either tell them, ‘turn yourself back or we’re going to deport you.’”

He continues, “If we can do an expedited deportation then you will be banned, for let’s say five years before you can ask for asylum as a type of consequence.”

The Border at Large

The U.S. Border Patrol reported more than 1.6 million illegal immigrants traveled across the U.S.–Mexico border in 2021, more than quadrupling the number of the prior fiscal year and the highest annual total on record.

Clint McDonald, executive director of the Southwestern Border Sheriffs’ Coalition, told The Epoch Times the number is so staggering even a border wall is not going to be a viable solution to stop the flow of illegal immigration.

“You have to look from a birds-eye view of what you’re saying is the vast differences in terrains from county to county, on the United States–Mexico border. There are 33 counties that lie in that zone from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, and each of those counties has their environmental makeup of what that border looks like and so when there is a surge to push people one way or the other you’re just moving them around. Right now all the border sheriffs can do and the border patrol can do is to just funnel people to an open area where there are fewer lives lost.”

McDonald continued: “We did a survey not too long ago and since the beginning of this administration we have already picked up close to 800 people who have been lost in the terrain of this border region.”

He adds that the border poses dangers not just for the illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the United States but also for the officers patrolling it.

“It’s part of the life that these individuals have chosen to live,” McDonald says about the mental health of his officers patrolling the border. “They do it because they care about humanity, they care about people, and to go out and find a woman who has drowned in the Rio Grande River who was pregnant with twins because she wanted to have her children on U.S. soil is heartbreaking.

“Finding a tree that is filled with women’s undergarments from the smugglers who have had their way with these women and even the children who are given birth contraceptives because their families know they’re going to be assaulted, it’s just unbelievable what’s going on on this border,” McDonald added.

American Victims

For those personally struck by the tragedy of illegal immigrant crime, the issue of reform takes on a different level.

“Losing a child to an illegal immigrant crime is unconscionable and it is very hard to process because it is the most preventable crime, closing our borders would be preventing this from happening time and time again,” Mary Ann Mendoza, founder of Angel Families, told The Epoch Times.

Mendoza’s son, Sgt. Brandon Mendoza of the Mesa, Arizona police department was killed on May 12, 2014, in a violent head-on collision on his way home from work. He was killed by an illegal immigrant repeat offender who had driven over 35 miles the wrong way on four different freeways before slamming head-on into her son’s vehicle on a blind curved transition ramp. The perpetrator was high on meth and his blood alcohol was over 3 times the legal limit.

When asked about the Supreme Court’s decision to keep Title 42 intact, Mendoza said: “Collectively as angels families, we are happy this has happened and it puts our minds at ease.”

End in Sight

Despite where one stands on the issue, both sides agree there ultimately needs to be some type of immigration reform.

“There is a way to do this with compassion,” said Cuellar. “Treat people with dignity and they can ask for release and a legal pathway but, at the same time you have to enforce the law and if there is someone who is not supposed to be here then you’ve got to return them.”

Others prefer a stronger stance.

“Right now the world has the greatest welfare system in place and it’s called the United States,” says McDonald. “When you have no border you have no country.”