Dem. Rep. Joaquin Castro: Collapse of Tea Party Inevitable

The tea party has "one or two more elections cycles" left before it implodes, Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"I think what's most problematic for Republicans, at this point, is that they seem to be taken right now by the tea party's more-extreme base," Castro said, referring to GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky. "I think if they nominate somebody like that, it will be 1964 all over again because that's just not where the majority of Americans are."

The reference is to the landslide victory by Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over his Republican opponent Barry Goldwater, a strong ideological conservative, in that year's historic presidential race.

"The infighting is getting so severe that I just don’t see how you sustain that," Castro said of the conservatives.

On the topic of immigration reform, Castro debunked Republican rationale that the border must be secured before any Dream Act-type bill is passed. He said the number of apprehensions and border crossings "is at a 40-year low."

"We have doubled the number of border-patrol agents that we had in 2004, when President [George W.] Bush was in office, so the border has never been more secure than it is now," Castro said.