Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) has issued the following statement regarding information detailing a new surge of immigrants from Haiti, Africa, Asia and the Middle East headed to the U.S. southern border.
“I recently spoke with the Ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States, Roman Macaya, regarding a pending immigration crisis on their border and which will soon have major impacts here at the U.S. border. According to Ambassador Macaya, roughly 40,000 migrants from Haiti, as well as Africa, Asia and the Middle East, will enter Costa Rica through their border with Panama this next year. They will then attempt to work their way up to the U.S.-Mexican border. Currently, migrants in Costa Rica are blocked from moving further north by the Nicaraguan military.
“However, if the Cuban crisis this past year has shown, they will likely soon find their way to our border, putting additional stress on our already thinly-stretched humanitarian resources; not to mention our immigration judges, who are working through a backlog of over half a million immigration cases.
“This past year, we struggled through a surge of approximately 56,000 Cuban migrants running up through Central America to our border, mostly through my hometown of Laredo, Texas, due to the archaic Cuban Adjustment Act policy and unprecedented benefits the U.S. provides exclusively for Cubans. This was in addition to the swell of 137,366 Central American children and families from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many of the Haitians arriving at our border were previously working in Brazil. However, due to the economic downturn in that country, they are seeking a path to the United States. Many have learned from smugglers and through social media that when they arrive at a port of entry or get picked up by the border patrol to claim they are seeking either a refugee status or asylum for a credible fear of persecution in their home country. This allows them to be granted a “Notice to Appear” for an asylum hearing and they are either briefly detained or allowed to enter the U.S. on their own recognizance.
"I continue to call on the State Department and my colleagues in Congress to stop playing defense on our goal line at the border and look for ways in which we can assist our Central and South American neighbors to try and stem this tide of illegal migration. This past year we provided $750 million in aid for Central America. However, it was tied up with so many certification requirements that little of that money has actually been executed at this point. I’m hopeful that that money will be obligated in the upcoming days. Furthermore, I’m working with my colleagues to provide our justice system with the immigration judges and necessary infrastructure to cut down on the backlog of immigration cases. In FY16 we were able to provide the Justice Department with 55 new immigration judges and had a deal worked out in the FY17 House Appropriations Act to provide 25 more. I will continue to work with my colleagues to find solutions to make changes to these processes at the border.”
