In July 2019, Cuccinelli blamed an asylum seeker for the asylum seeker's own death and that of his daughter who were found dead on the banks of the Rio Grande River. He said, "The reason we have tragedies like that on the border is because those folks, that father didn't want to wait to go through the asylum process in the legal fashion, so decided to cross the river". He said in an interview that the administration is prepared to deport approximately 1 million undocumented immigrants who have final removal orders already in place.