SAN ANTONIO -- Congressman Henry Cuellar was in San Antonio Monday giving an update on his legislative priorities involving appropriations and immigration.
"Unaccompanied kids have been coming for a while. In fact, probably over 80 percent of the kids that are coming in right now are unaccompanied. The separated kids from their parents is probably 20 percent or less. But the big issue is still the unaccompanied, but because of the way the President separated the kids, it was pretty bad,” said Rep. Cuellar.
Cuellar discussed topics like NAFTA, DACA, tariffs, the border wall and loss of patrol agents to ICE, and changes to asylum laws.
"Name the country, and they're here. And there are some countries that are knowing how to, they know that if you come to the Southern border and claim asylum or credible fear, that's a way to get in. I think other countries need to carry the weight. So if somebody comes in from a country, and they want to claim asylum, and they go through Germany for example, or France, or England, before they come to the US, they have an asylum law, they had an opportunity to claim, then an immigration judge should take that into consideration when they're deciding,” he said.
Cuellar is also pushing for more immigration judges. He said case loads are going up and are at about 700,000 now. He said at least 300 more immigration judges are needed.