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A Texas Democratic congressman claims he’s getting more information from Mexico than the White House regarding the ongoing surge of migrants at the border.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents a large swath of the US border area surrounding Laredo, also claimed opportunistic Mexican cartel traffickers earned $600 million in connection with the crisis last month alone, during a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I sit on the Homeland Appropriations [Subcommittee]. I get more information from across the river than I do from my own government which is amazing,” Cuellar told the program about the Biden administration’s apparent information blackout about the escalating situation in his district.
Cuellar said illegal immigrants are continuing to overwhelm the border because the US has not done a good job of relaying President Biden’s message to not come.
“If you don’t show a message that someone is going to face a consequence, of course they’re going to come over,” Cuellar said on MSNBC.
Cuellar said he tested his theory at the migrant border camps.
“The president’s message, I asked about twenty 16 or 17-year-old kids. Nobody had heard that,” Cuellar reportedly said.
The Texas Democrat told “Morning Joe” that migrants are getting better messaging from family members, and drug cartels who are raking in profits for escorting more than 100,000 people to the border in February alone.
“I asked them what about neighbors or friends, family members that have gone across. ‘Hey Maria, I got across come over.’ Almost everybody raised their hand,” Cuellar said of his informal poll.
“The third message is the very aggressive message promoted by the drug cartels, criminal organizations, because every time they bring somebody, they make $6,000,” Cuellar said.
It’s the second time in two days Cuellar has taken the White House to task over the escalating crisis. He released sobering pictures Monday of the makeshift migrant tents that are home to some 15,000 unaccompanied children that the Biden administration refuses to send home.
The media has not been given access to the tents.
“I think they probably will let y’all [the media] in some time in the future. I hope so,” Cuellar said as pressure mounts on Washington.
The Democrat said the Biden administration ignored his warnings in January and February about the mounting crisis, and warned his party will face blowback at the ballot box if the border is not secured soon.
“I’m a Democrat. I supported Biden. But this will become a political problem,” Cuellar told MSNBC.
“As we can see, our Republican colleagues are already turning this into a political weapon.”
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