President Joe Biden terminated the use of Title 42 this week, following years of opposition from immigration rights groups and many progressive Democrats. That is the public health statute that Donald Trump first invoked during the outbreak to deport millions of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.
Republicans have reacted predictably to Biden’s decision. But probably more concerning to the president is the swelling number of Democratic Party critics afraid that Biden’s border policies would cause a humanitarian crisis and maybe an electoral reaction.
One of those Democrats is Rep. Henry Cuellar. And he’s this week’s Playbook Deep Dive guest.
Cuellar is more knowledgeable on immigration than most of his Democratic colleagues. He was born in Laredo, Texas, to immigrant farm workers. He attended college and law school before entering Texas politics and then the United States Congress, where he has served since 2005, representing Texas’ 28th Congressional District, which stretches from San Antonio to Laredo and includes 200 miles of the southern border.
The left despises him. He drew a lot of attention in the previous two election cycles, when he was targeted by national progressives and narrowly survived two primary challenges.
One reason for such issues is Cuellar’s well-known position on immigration, where he is to the right of many of his Democratic colleagues. On the other hand, he voted against the border security package introduced by House Republicans this week. Cuellar is a lone centrist on a topic that has gotten increasingly polarised in the previous decade.
And, as he tells Playbook co-author and Deep Dive host Ryan Lizza, he believes Joe Biden should join him in the middle and stop listening to the left as the president prepares for the fallout from his Title 42 decision.