Top House Democrat: Biden’s grade on border ‘incomplete’

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in an interview aired on Sunday that President Biden has earned an “incomplete” grade on the U.S.-Mexico border amid humanitarian concerns and partisan discord over immigration policy.

“I think the grade would be incomplete, right? There’s plenty to do. We know that it’s a humanitarian issue down at the southern border,” Aguilar told ABC News contributor Maria Elena Salinas on “This Week.”

Aguilar said he thinks Biden is trying to find balance between dealing with an overwhelmed immigration system and respecting migrants seeking refuge within U.S. borders by “increasing the pathways that people have to declare asylum, so they can declare asylum in their home countries or while they are in transit.”

But the California representative said his party still has work to do — not only on the issues, but on communicating to voters on the topic.

“There’s no cookie-cutter way to talk about Latino issues. We need to realize that. We need to have a plan to talk to those voters and those individuals. And I think that we need to do a better job of that,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar, who has long been a proponent of helping so-called Dreamers achieve citizenship, said “more friends and allies” are needed in the Senate to get legislation passed.

“I can respect that at certain times, you know, the House has been at fault and the Senate has been at fault, but in the last ten years, Democrats have continually put these bills on the floor, and Republicans have stood in the way on the House side to see any real reform happen,” Aguilar said.

With their new control of the House, Republicans have homed in on Biden’s border policies as a target of their probes into the president and the administration.

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