Cuellar: We Can Do Safe Remain in Mexico Policy, Right Now People Just Get Released on ‘Honor System’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) stated that there is a way to do the Remain in Mexico policy that would take care of any safety concerns for the migrants and that without it, or another change, asylum applicants “just put on an honor system and they’re sent off into the interior. And, at the end of the day, once they go before an immigration judge at the end of four or five years, you’re going to find out that most of them don’t qualify” for asylum.

Cuellar said, “I think one of the reasons Democrats were against stay in Mexico was simply because they felt that having the migrants wait over there was too dangerous. But look, you can always work with the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, where they have been in very tough places across the world. They can be involved. They can provide better security while we process them. So, yeah, we can have a safe stay in Mexico process. Because, again, look, if you’ve got 8,000 people that are trying to cross a day, but you can only process 500 of them, what happens to the other 7,500 people? They are just put on an honor system and they’re sent off into the interior. And, at the end of the day, once they go before an immigration judge at the end of four or five years, you’re going to find out that most of them don’t qualify under the persecution by a state based on the five reasons why you’re allowed under asylum. Most of them are coming in for economic reasons, and, as you know, economic reasons [don’t] provide you an asylum relief.”

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