Speaker Johnson Dismisses White House Promise of New Border Curbs

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks while standing with Republican members of Congress,
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Neil Munro

President Joe Biden should restore the “Remain in Mexico” border barrier if he wants his 2024 border promises to be taken seriously, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in response to media claims that Biden will curb asylum migration.

“If these reports are true and the President intends to take action, he can show he’s serious by changing more than asylum policy,” Johnson said in a Thursday tweet, adding, “He should begin by reinstating the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and by ending his administration’s abuse of the parole system, along with other critical reforms.”

Johnson, who understands immigration and backs the House’s H.R. 2 reform plan, added:

Americans have lost faith in this President and won’t be fooled by election-year gimmicks that don’t actually secure the border. Nor will they forget that the President created this catastrophe and, until now, has refused to use his executive power to fix it.

Since January 2021, Biden and his deputies have admitted roughly seven million illegal migrants, or roughly two migrants for every three U.S. births. That wealth-shifting wave of foreigners is deeply unpopular, prompting a campaign trail PR switch by Biden’s 2024 managers.

Biden’s migration began when he restored catch-and-release policies by ending the “Remain in Mexico” program. The program was launched by President Donald Trump, and it blocked job-seeking migration by denying asylum-seeking migrants the jobs that they need to pay their high-interest smuggling loans.

Biden’s deputies also created the parole pathway in 2023 to import yet more migrants. Since then, more than one million migrants have been invited to seek wages that would otherwise go to American families or to productivity-boosting workplace upgrades.

The leaked claims of a policy change by Biden are being repeated credulously by establishment media. The gullible media reports do not recognize that the ailing Biden may not have the bureaucratic power — or even any willing deputies — that he needs to make his pro-migration allies and deputies enforce significant border curbs

Democrats are already using the Senate GOP’s instant rejection of the giveaway border bill secretly drafted by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to blame the GOP for Biden’s unpopular policies.

“Republicans …. can make this [bill] happen. If they don’t, this will be a wedge issue, a forceful issue against them this November as well,”  New York Governor Kathy Hochul claimed on February 20. “I’m putting them on notice: You broke it, you now own it.”

Meanwhile, the media dismisses growing evidence of migration’s economic damage to blue-collar and white-collar Americans.

The media even ignores the GOP’s growing criticism about the damaging impact of migration on Americans’ access to government services such as schools and hospitals.

But Johnson’s statement is important because Biden’s deputies are now trying to overcome his opposition to a bill that would allocate roughly $10 billion to fund more migration.

Johnson wrote:

Republicans have been sounding the alarm about the catastrophic effects of Biden’s open border policies since he began his term. Last year I sent a letter to the President to demand he take immediate executive action. He has thus far ignored my demands, and despite the pleas from big city mayors, border state governors, and the American people.

Now, in an election year, after the president has surrendered the border to cartels and smugglers, after tens of thousands of Americans have tragically lost their lives due to fentanyl poisoning, after countless unaccompanied minors and young people have been subjected to human trafficking, and after millions of illegal aliens have been scattered by the Biden administration throughout our country — the President suddenly seems interested in trying to make a change using the legal authority that he claimed until recently didn’t exist.

Americans have lost faith in this President and won’t be fooled by election-year gimmicks that don’t actually secure the border. Nor will they forget that the President created this catastrophe and, until now, has refused to use his executive power to fix it.

These reports also underscore just how brazenly and intentionally President Biden misled the public when he claimed he had done everything in his power to secure the border. Specifically, the President’s alleged desire to invoke Section 212[f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which the White House dismissed using for months, is particularly telling.

If these reports are true and the President intends to take action, he can show he’s serious by changing more than a solid policy. He should begin by reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy and ending his administration’s abuse of the parole system, along with other critical reforms.

Biden’s inflow of migrants has imposed a huge cost on Americans by pressuring down Americans’ wages. It has also boosted rents and housing prices, eased drug smuggling, and reduced native-born Americans’ clout in local and national elections.

The inflow has also pushed many native-born Americans out of careers in a wide variety of fields and spiked the number of “Deaths of Despair.”

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