President Joe Biden's new border plan is just window dressing, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday.
At his weekly press conference, Johnson reminded people Biden said four months ago he had done all he could do.
"He tried to convince us all for all this time that there was no way he could possibly fix the mess," Johnson said. "Remember that he engineered it."
Biden's executive order, issued Tuesday, bars migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem the southern border is overwhelmed. The move sets the stage for much of the nation's southern border to close at midnight.
But Johnson noted Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued 64 executive orders to open up the border.
"They engineered the open border," Johnson said. "They did it intentionally. There's no question about it. Now he wants to issue some weak executive order to try to address the issue. It's window dressing. Everybody knows it."
The House speaker said, if Biden was really concerned about the border, he would have issued the executive order a long time ago.
"We don't know what's in this," Johnson said. "The devil will definitely be in the details here."
But Johnson said he bets the executive order will ignore the broken asylum process, reinstate the remain in Mexico policy and policies aimed at ending catch and release — all policies Republicans addressed in a border bill voted on 14 months ago.
"Those are the reasons that this catastrophe has been allowed to continue," Johnson said.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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