CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Vicente Gonzalez

Interview

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CABRERA: That was Rosa Flores reporting. And just today, the Biden administration said today it could need

upwards of 35,000 additional beds to keep up with the projected number of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border through September.

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.

Thanks for being with us, Congressman.

Your district sits near the southern border and I want to show you a video that was posted by Senator James Lankford after a trip he made to the border. It shows people crammed together on the floor inside pods, and covered with Mylar blankets. This is at the facility in Donna, Texas.

Do you feel confident that this administration has a plan that's going to get this situation under control?

REP. VICENTE GONZALEZ (D-TX): Well, I feel confident they a plan, but more needs to be done. And, by the way, this group of Republican senators that came down yesterday, where were they during the Trump administration when children were ripped from their mother's arms and cage and families were being divided? Do they all of a sudden have a softened heart to come down here and look at it?

What I'm interested in is real solutions, and I say that to members of both sides of the aisles who have been coming down to my district and surrounding areas for photo-ops and press conferences. We need solutions. We need to stop playing politics with this game.

For us here on the border, this isn't political or ideological. This is real, everyday life. We need to be making investments in three Central Americans countries. We need to be slowing this migration in southern Mexico and helping these people there.

If we really want to be humane and helpful, let's help them there. Let's make sure there's a safe zone, where we can guarantee their safety and health and security, where they can process their asylum claim and help them improve conditions in their country. The children are special to me.

So, obviously, we need to treat them differently, and find ways for them to reunite with their family from their home country if they have relatives or families up here. They should be able to have a path where they can fly in and reunite.

I think the Biden administration just re-implanted this program that had been dropped during the Trump administration. That's a good first start, but there's many other ideas that I've been trying to express to the administration that I think would be helpful in slowing the migration. Clearly, get into our border, come across, being processed and released should be unacceptable for anybody on both sides of the aisle.

It's not an orderly system. It's -- we're in the middle of the pandemic. I've lost over 3,000 people in my congressional district. CABRERA: Yeah.

GONZALEZ: And I really don't need people coming from the Midwest or the East Coast or the West Coast, to my border to tell me how things should be done. We have ideas that worked, that are proven, and I think -- I hope the Biden administration listens to us and starts really implementing these plans.

CABRERA: A lot of people --

GONZALEZ: That's the only way to have a long term solution.

CABRERA: We've heard a lot of questions about why, why now? Why is this happening? And we know there are a number of different reasons for why there is a surge right now at the southern border, some of it stems from the pandemic, impacting conditions in their home countries. There's obviously violence which we've talked about. There were hurricanes which also have an impact there.

Take a listen, though, to President Biden reacting to claims that more migrants are coming to the Southern border, because he has a reputation of being a nice guy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Does anybody suggest that there was a 31 percent increase under Trump because he was a nice guy and he was doing good things at the border? That's not the reason they're coming. The reason they're coming is that it's the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert, number one. Number two, they're coming because of the circumstances in country, in country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Facts first here. It is true there is a cyclical nature to these numbers. They tend to go up between January and May because of the weather, and the current numbers President Biden is dealing with however are much higher than this time last year under Trump. But even with Trump and his zero-tolerance policy, there was still a surge during the same time frame. So, is it just unavoidable?

GONZALEZ: Well, I think -- no, it's unavoidable if we go down to those countries and help them there and get Mexico, the government of Mexico involved and let's try to create processing centers on the southern border of Mexico, work with the government of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, a lot more can be done.

[17:25:16]

And the billions of dollars in resources that we're expending here on our borders could be spent there and it create real humane solutions. I'm not going to say that they showed up just because Biden became president. Clearly, there's a message that hey, he's much less -- he's not as hateful as President Trump. He's not going to cage or divide families. So there was an unintend -- unintended event, I think, just by the very nature of that Biden is a humane human being that treats people with dignity. But at the end of the day, I can tell you that the process is not acceptable. We need to find better ways to deal with it.

And I think the Biden administration is doing just that. I looked at their blueprint -- immigration blueprint, it's got -- it's full of great ideas. It has refugee centers. It has places for people to request asylum in their country. It has better messaging.

Telling people how dangerous this road is, we're enriching cartels in Mexico when we allow this migration do come across. People are paying an average of $6,000 per head to get to our southern border.

We should -- that should be appealing. Women are being raped. Children are in insecure conditions.

So let's do more further south. Let's do more in Mexico southern border. Let's do more in Guatemala. Let's do more in Honduras. Let's do more in El Salvador.

But don't come back to my district to take photographs -- and I'm talking to both Democrats and Republicans -- and do press conferences. I want to hear solutions. What I'm offering are real solution this problem.

Don't show up here to do videos and audios and talk to the press and talk about either how good it is or how good of a job you're doing or how bad it is. Let's talk about long-term solutions.

CABRERA: Congressman Gonzalez --

GONZALEZ: I don't need people from around the country to come down here for that.

CABRERA: We hear you. Thank you very much for taking the time and talking with us today.

GONZALEZ: Thank you.

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