McALLEN — U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar may be on recess with the rest of Congress, but that doesn’t mean he’s made much time for play.

The Laredo Democrat, whose district includes much of the western Rio Grande Valley, sent a letter Friday to President Obama, asking to sit down alongside other members of Congress to reach a compromise on how best to handle the ongoing immigration crisis, which has cooled in recent weeks.

“We left Washington D.C., we didn’t put the money in, we didn’t make the policy change and I think hopefully cooler heads will prevail now and hopefully we can come up with some agreement and consensus to address this issue,” Cuellar said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

In the letter, he said “shifts in the conversation” on what to do about the crisis have had an impact on progress toward reaching a solution.

Cuellar gained national attention last month when he co-sponsored legislation with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, which would allow Border Patrol to deport Central American children the same as those who arrived illegally from Mexico.

The bill would have mandated an expedited hearing before an immigration judge, who would decide whether the case should move forward or the child should be sent back to their home country. Most Democrats and immigrant advocates said the law wouldn’t allow enough time to provide evidence of credible fears or threats facing the juvenile defendants.

Cuellar in his letter pointed to how Obama wrote to Congress in June that he supported changes to the current law to speed up minors’ deportations. The 2008 law signed by former President George W. Bush stripped Homeland Security’s ability to remove unaccompanied minors from non-contiguous countries — the source of most of the recent surge of immigrant children. He noted other top Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, have noted how the 2008 law should be amended.

Democrats last month backed off supporting the measure amid stiff opposition came from immigrant rights groups, saying expediting deportations for such immigrants wouldn’t provide enough time to adequately argue whether each child’s case has merit to go forward.

The legislation passed the House on party lines — Cuellar was the lone Democrat who voted for it — but never reached a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate ahead of this month’s recess.

The Obama administration has not responded to Cuellar’s letter.

Officials in recent days have reported drops in the number of unaccompanied children detained at the border.

Homeland Security last week released data that show about 5,500 kids were arrested last month — roughly half the number in each of the previous two months. South Texas arrests have fallen to about 100 per day — a third of the number reported in June, according to Border Patrol statistics reported by The Associated Press.

National attention to the immigrant surge has recently dropped amid the congressional recess and fewer arrests. Last week, federal officials said they would close three temporary shelters that could house up to 3,000 children.

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