On Monday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) stated that he wants to see immigration policy changes and criticized Republicans for playing politics around a prospective border deal, but also stated that President Joe Biden should use “the existing law right now” to deport people the same way the Obama administration did.
Co-host Kailey Leinz asked, “Well, sir, if politics get in the way [of] the President actually having a chance to sign legislation like this into law, what would you like to see him do unilaterally, what authorities should he exercise to address the border?”
Cuellar answered, “The President has — and, again, I want to see those changes — but the President has a lot of power. He has that discretion to do certain things. Look at what Secretary Jeh Johnson [under] Obama did, they were able to detain and deport people under Title VIII. They didn’t use Title 42. They used the existing law right now, and they were able to probably have more detention and more deportations than even President Trump. So, there [are] a lot of things he can use right now, and if the Republicans say no to working this border deal or at least put it to a vote, I would ask the President to use Title VIII, use the existing authorities, and detain people and deport people, because right now, we probably have the largest amount of beds that we’ve had in a long time, detention beds, close to 38,000, 39,000, where, in the past there have been 34,000. So, there is space there. And he can always use that law, Title VIII, to deport people.”
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