Texas Democrat criticizes VP Kamala Harris for calling the southern border ‘secure’

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) has hit out at Vice President Kamala Harris’ assessment that America’s southern border is secure during a recent appearance on CNN.

Harris appeared on “Meet The Press” and was asked by NBC News anchor Chuck Todd if the border was secure. Harris replied by saying that the immigration system was “broken” under the Trump administration and still “needs to be fixed.”

“I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do, the first request we made: pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship,” Harris said, per Fox News. “The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed.”

CNN host Michael Smerconish played the clip of Harris saying the border was secure to Cuellar.

“Congressman, that’s just not true, right?” Smerconish asked. “You’re on the front line. You’ve spent your whole life in Laredo. The border is not secure, is it?”

Cuellar replied: “The border is not secure, with all due respect to the VP. This — look, we get thousands of people along the border, from 6,000 to 8,000 people a day. They’re releasing people, and we can send you pictures and videos of what’s happened in Del Rio, the valley, El Paso and other places. People are coming in.”

Cuellar then went on to deliver some numbers in regard to the border.

“We have 1.7 million people that were encountered last year. We’re going to have 2 or maybe 2.2 [million] by the end of this fiscal year in about two more weeks. That’s almost 4 million people,” he warned. “That doesn’t even include the getaways. Getaways are the people that border patrol has a good idea that evaded them. So you’re talking about almost 4 plus, maybe 4.4 million individuals in two years.”

Cuellar then took aim at Harris and by saying “If you call that ‘secure,’ I don’t know what ‘secure’ is.”