Fox News "Your World" - Transcript: Rep. Cleaver: Border policy rattles the soul of America

Interview

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CAVUTO: All right, the president a half-an-hour away from meeting with House Republicans on how to get over this whole separating parents from their kids and the whole dust-up at the border.

I want to get the read from Democratic Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.

Congressman, what do you make of this dust-up? A lot of your Democratic colleagues say, Republicans are heartless, they're mean, they're ripping kids from their parents' arms, and they meant to do it, it's all targeted, they're heartless.

You're a calming person. So, I will take your view to be maybe more representative of, like, a humane view. But what do you think of this?

REP. EMANUEL CLEAVER, D-MO.: Well, I think the policy does rattle the soul of America and it causes most Americans some heartburn.

I try to always deal with the policy, instead of the person. The policy is not a good policy. I think it is embarrassing for many American that we're experiencing something in this country to the point that it may begin to cancel out our ability to be the moral leader of the world.

CAVUTO: So, when this was put in place, even though no one exercised it, no president did exercise it to the degree this administration did, Jeff Sessions did, it was never implemented, right?

Did you know years back that it was there, that you could do this, that legally you could do this?

CLEAVER: I had no idea. And I would venture to say many members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, had no idea that...

CAVUTO: So there was an understanding that when families were apprehended at the border, and they had to go into a jail or whatever to wait it out, that it was OK for kids to join them in the jail?

Because part of it was to avoid that for the kids. But if we return to that and stick to that and we do that, you're OK with that?

CLEAVER: Well, I would like to go back to whatever policy we had previously.

CAVUTO: Sure.

CLEAVER: I went down to the border. And I saw the pens, the jails, whatever we want to call them. And they were not as humane as I would like, because I think the kids were having some trauma when I saw them down outside of Brownsville, Texas.

But the problem we have now is that this has been ratcheted up to a point where we're talking about thousands of kids. And the days gone by, when I didn't know about it, we still -- we had kids, but it was nothing at this same level. And I think it's tugging, as I said, at the soul of the country.

CAVUTO: So if they fix it, Congressman, to the degree the president wants, he wants to solve this, House Republicans -- it sounds like the Republicans can fix it.

Well, what is to stop then Republicans from coming up with an immigration policy on their own as well? Do you think Democrats should be involved in fixing this?

CLEAVER: I do. And...

CAVUTO: Because not a one is part of it yet.

CLEAVER: Well, but the problem we have is that it's just like the tax bill.

And I think, in some instances, Democrats did it when we were in power. And we can't continue this, because it's tearing -- it's ripping through the fabric of this country. And it's going to continue.

And that is, we don't go through regular order. So, the Republicans are writing bills and legislation, like the tax bill, of which we have absolutely no participation.

I would go to the meeting. I would go today if I could go...

CAVUTO: But I wonder if it creates such ill will to say that the president is heartless, Republicans are heartless, maybe the attorney general is heartless.

How do you work with the other side when that goes? How do we ever -- assuming we get this problem fixed, and they seem to want to get it fixed, how do we ever get back to anything approaching, you know, productive behavior, if that ever were the case?

CLEAVER: Yes. I think it was.

I think this would be the kind of an issue, because both sides are needed. You don't want half of America split on this very vital issue of immigration.

So we should be meeting now. A group of us have been meeting here, a group of Democrats, talking about the fact that when and if we ever resume power in the House, that we're going to push against our own leadership about writing bills, leaving the other side out, because then, whenever they come back, they will say, well, we remember that.

And it's going to get worse and worse. And people don't understand we're just tearing apart this country. And it's not going to get any better as long as Congress...

CAVUTO: Do you ever think that some of your colleagues might have seized on this and used it as an excuse to not fix the immigration problem and just overly play this?

CLEAVER: Yes, I think the problem has always been on the Democratic side - - and I'm not sure if there's any been participation in any of these discussions -- has been -- always been the $30 billion wall.

CAVUTO: That's the resistance, right? You guys cannot sign up for that, right?

CLEAVER: Well, as a native Texan, I grew up in Texas. I'm very familiar with the border.

CAVUTO: Right.

CLEAVER: And so I know that the people who live on the border, whether they are Republican or Democratic, they don't want a wall.

CAVUTO: Understood.

CLEAVER: On the wall, that's why you have Republican representatives from Texas saying, we oppose the wall.

So, that's a problem. And I think we have got to get beyond that, Neil.

CAVUTO: I hear you.

CLEAVER: It's not doing any good.

CAVUTO: Calmer and cooler heads need to prevail on both sides.

You're one of them. Congressman, thank you very much. I'm sorry our time was tight.

CLEAVER: Sure.

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