Fox News "Fox News Sunday" - Transcript: Rep. McCaul on chances Congress can solve immigration crisis

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

WALLACE: Steve Harrigan reporting from McAllen, Texas -- Steve, thank you.

Joining us now, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Michael McCaul, sponsor of an immigration reform bill the House may vote on this week after rejecting a more conservative plan on Thursday.

Mr. Chairman, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, R-TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: Let's start with that more moderate immigration reform bill that you helped pass. Let's put up what's in it. It provides a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers, $25 billion to build a border wall, it puts new limits on legal immigration and ends separation of families.

President Trump tweeted this Friday: Republicans should stop wasting their time on immigration until after we elect more senators and congressmen/women in November.

So, will the House still vote on your bill this week and how much damage has President Trump's stop wasting your time to be done to the chances for passage?

MCCAUL: Well, I would urge the president to continue to support the four pillars idea. That's my border security bill, going to a merit-based system and providing for a rational DACA fix. That was rejected, as you mentioned the conservative bill that Chairman Goodlatte and I sponsored that got rejected. But I did talk to the White House yesterday. They say the president is still 100 percent behind us.

Moving forward, I think -- you know, when you look at these kids down there, and I've been down there, this is not the first time this has happened. This happened in 2014 as well. Congress needs to act to close the legal loopholes that incentivize the coyotes to bring these children into the United States and if we don't do that we are going to see this scenario, this human tragedy play out over and over again.

WALLACE: But the president's tweet, stop wasting your time, can't have helped in the fact is that the reason this bill, the more moderate bill was put over from last week to this week is because you still don't have the votes.

MCCAUL: Well, we call it a consensus bill. We're trying to get a consensus from Freedom Caucus moderates and people in the middle on the Republican side. We had a very good conference when we put a pause on that bill going forward. I felt very optimistic we are going to have a solution to this problem and if we don't do this you are going to see more for these kids at the border.

And let's not forget the dangerous journey they make. Yes, the secretary told me there were 12,000 children, 10,000 of them did not come with parents, but rather the coyote was their guardian, taking them from Central America all the way through Mexico and the United States, a very dangerous journey where they are abused and exploited.

WALLACE: If comprehensive reform, your bill, goes down this week, and it still seems to be more likely than not, there is already talk to the House may try to pass a narrow bill which would deal simply with the idea of keeping families together, not separating them. One, is that true? And secondly, if you pass that bill, is it humane that your solution is going to be, well, yes, we are going to keep them together, but we're going to keep the families and the children detained for weeks or even months?

MCCAUL: Well, under the bill that I helped to pass this week, we provide the solution. The problem, Chris, is that we treat people from other than Mexico, the Central Americans different from the Mexicans coming across. We want to treat them all the same, and that is when you come in from Mexico as a child, you are detained but then immediately removed from the country.

We think if we could do that with the Central American population, that would go a long ways to providing -- disincentivizing the smugglers and cartels and traffickers from bringing the kids up in the first place.

WALLACE: But is there talk -- and is there serious thought about if you can't pass your bill that you go to a skinny bill that just deals with family separation?

MCCAUL: I think -- I think we at a minimum have to deal with the family separation. I'm a father of five. I think this is inhumane and I think the pictures that we have seen -- that's not the face of America. I think that most people in this country want.

WALLACE: The president keeps blaming Democrats for the problem and the failure to deal with the immigration problem in this country. Take a look.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

WALLACE: But, Chairman, Republicans control the House. It was Republicans who failed to pass the more conservative bill this week. It's Republicans who could pass your bill next week without a single Democratic vote. In fact, you could lose 20 Republican votes and still pass the bill. So, for all the president's talk about Democrats, if you failed to pass the bill, isn't that on Republicans, not Democrats?

MCCAUL: Well, I think our family needs to come together. The fact is every Democrat voted against a very I think rational DACA fix. They have been talking about DACA, you know, for a year now and we had a bill on the floor that would resolve this issue, legalize the DACA kids and yet, every one of them voted against that.

I don't think that's operating in good faith either and I also think it's important on the border security piece. I've been doing this since I was a federal prosecutor in Texas to chairman of this committee to deliver on the president's campaign promise to build a wall with technology, and get the border secure. The --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Why can't you get Republicans to support this? I mean, you know Democrats oppose it, certain elements of it like the wall, like limiting legal immigration, why can't you get your own house in order and Republicans pass the House bill?

MCCAUL: Well, I am the eternal optimist and I do think there are 218 Republicans that agree with the four pillars of border security, ending chain migration, visa lottery, a a random system and fixing the DACA children.

WALLACE: You know, some of the hardline conservative call that amnesty and they are going to vote against it.

MCCAUL: It's merit-based.

WALLACE: I'm talking about the DACA.

MCCAUL: Right. And it's a merit-based visa. It's based on merit. It's not amnesty.

I mean, Raul Labrador is hardly a left-wing liberal, right? He's very conservative, Freedom Caucus guy, actually drafted that DACA provision that Carlos Curbelo on (ph) the left, they came to an agreement on that.

WALLACE: I want to go to something else you said about all of this because if the House does pass something, it goes onto the Senate where you would need 10 -- or nine Democratic votes to get above the filibuster-proof majority to get to 60 votes. You said this week that you think the Republican majority in the Senate should change the rules an end the filibuster.

But, you know, sometimes when you were in the minority that works to your benefit and the question I guess I have is, OK, that would help you right now, but are you willing to see a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate, that will, at some point able to ram anything they want through?

MCCAUL: Well, we did that Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch.

WALLACE: But not legislation.

MCCAUL: I would argue that this is national security at stake. Securing that our border, the threats I can tell you, not only drug cartels, opioids, but also the terrorists. We stop 10 terrorists every day from getting into this country. I look at it from a national security standpoint.

It should be a bipartisan issue, but if not, the Senate has that traditional role -- I think they should wave it in this case on the basis of national security to protect the American people.

WALLACE: Let's turn to the president's executive order this week in the confusion that it has sown at the border. Here's what the president said.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

WALLACE: But as chairman of House Homeland Security, can you sit here and tell me right now as we sit here, do you know when those 2,000 children who are still separated from their families will be reunited with their parents?

MCCAUL: Well, I applaud the president for reversing course on this issue. Those children were sent into the custody of HHS, who then sent them 1,000 miles away to relatives in the United States.

I think the better way to do this that are billed as is we keep the family together, but we also treat them like the Mexican people where we detain and then remove them from the country. If we don't do that, we will never stop this problem. We'll be talking about this next year and the year after if we don't fix it by Congress.

WALLACE: But I -- just to press my point, do you know when these 2,000 children who have been separated, and as you say, some of them are thousands of miles away, what are they going to be reunited with their parents?

MCCAUL: I think it's a very difficult thing to do and they're going to do have to bring them back to the border where they should have been in the first place and --

WALLACE: Are we talking weeks or months?

MCCAUL: And be with their parents who violated the law, reunite them at the family center and then go forward with the removal proceedings.

But, Chris, as it exists now under the Flores decision, after 20 days, they are released into society and these could be dangerous people. I'm not saying they all are. But I think the children, you know, because HHS, they are put in their custody and transferred somewhere else in the country.

WALLACE: Let me ask you another specific question. As chairman of House Homeland Security, do you know whether adults, members of families crossing the border illegally can and are still being prosecuted under zero-tolerance?

MCCAUL: That was the plan. They violated the law. They were being prosecuted. I have --

WALLACE: And now we hear some of these people are being dismissed.

MCCAUL: I have heard recent reports now that that may be -- that policy may be revisited and it may not go forward.

WALLACE: Zero-tolerance?

MCCAUL: I mean, that's some of the reporting I'm getting. And it's very unclear how this executive order is playing out, but I'm not clear about how the prosecution of the parents. I think they want to reunite the family and then remove them from the country.

WALLACE: Final question, at the height of this furor, you said and you basically made that point just now that you were destroyed as a father of five at what's happened. And you said at one point that this policy must come to an end. How badly has this been handled?

MCCAUL: I think, you know, to set forth a policy and then having to reverse it is not a consistent message obviously, to be candid with you. But I think -- I wouldn't fall the administration on this. I would fault the United States Congress, who has the power to change the laws that will stop this from happening again and yet we can't seem to get this done.

And that's why I've urged my colleagues, why is it so important that national security is at stake, protecting the American people? We have to get this done or we'll be seeing the scene play out over and over again. There will be -- we had 30,000 kids in 2014. We're going to see the same thing this summer if we don't change it.

WALLACE: Chairman McCaul, thank you. Thanks for your time. We'll track what happens with your comprehensive bill on the floor this week. Thank you, sir.

MCCAUL: Thank you, Chris.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source