Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents one of the Texas districts President Donald Trump is visiting on Thursday, denied there is a crisis at the border in his state, and pointed out that McAllen, where Trump plans to be, is a safer community than Washington, D.C.
"If you look at the latest FBI statistics, you will see that McAllen is very different when it comes to murder, rapes, assaults, and violent crime," the Texas Democrat told CNN's "New Day." "The safest place that the president is going to be at today is going to be McAllen, not here in Washington, D.C. "
He also rejected the idea that a wall through the 290 miles of border in his district will make it more safe.
"Look, we've got to understand if you want to stop drugs, keep in mind that most of the drugs will come through the points of entry," said Cuellar, calling for more of an emphasis to be put there.
"Keep in mind that in the year 2000, the Border Patrol stopped about 1.6 million individuals," he said. "Last year they stopped about 396,000 individuals, so it's almost a quarter of the amount that came. By the way, 40 percent of the documented people that we have came in through a legal permit or visa so a wall is not going to stop those folks."
Further, Cuellar said he's spoken to Border Patrol chiefs, both from the past and currently, and they said a wall only slows people for a few minutes or a few seconds.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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