Cuellar disagrees with Texas migrant deportation law ruling: ‘There’s a lot of questions’

Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) voiced his disagreement regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday allowing a Texas law to take effect that will authorize the state’s law enforcement to arrest people who enter the U.S. through the southern border illegally. 

Cuellar, the co-chair of the recently established border security task force, disagrees that a state can enforce immigration laws, and the ruling prompted many questions about the law’s implementation.  

“I disagree with the Supreme Court that the state has the right to enforce immigration laws. Look, I know when we looked at the Arizona case 10-12 years ago, the Supreme Court said it doesn’t matter how frustrated a state is, when we talk about immigration reform or immigration enforcement, it belongs to the federal government,” Cuellar said during “The Hill” on NewsNation appearance on Tuesday. 

“So one of the things that we know this is only temporary. We don’t know what happens after the Fifth Circuit rules on it and it comes back to the Supreme Court, but I certainly feel that there’s a lot of questions.”

The Tuesday order is not final, and the case could come back to the nation’s highest court. The statute passed Texas’s Republican-controlled Legislature last year and was signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). In the case, Texas argued that it had the right to defend itself and that the President Biden administration was unable or unwilling to protect the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Cuellar, a moderate Democrat, questioned how the law would be practiced, specifically how people crossing illegally would be sent back.

“If you arrest somebody in Texas, do you just put them in the middle of the bridge, even [though] they might be from some other country, or do you have the power to put them on an airplane and send them back to their countries,” he said. “Those mechanisms are not there.” 

The Hill is owned by NexStar which also owns NewsNation.