Speaker Johnson: Why Biden's New Border Security Executive Order 'Is Not Going To Solve The Problem'

6 months ago

At today's House Republican leadership press briefing, Speaker Johnson slammed President Biden's border record.

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Transcript

00:00 Yes, Mr Speaker. Thank you. When talking about President Biden Biden's E O that we expect

00:04 to roll out two questions on that one. Why is no limit, which is what we have now better

00:12 than some limit? Why are you? Why are you saying we shouldn't go for at least some

00:16 limit here? And then also, is your plan to actually move some kind of legislative vehicle?

00:21 We know HR two is what you want, but you actually get something done that can pass through Congress.

00:25 Is your plan essentially just to wait till the election and hope that Republicans win?

00:29 No, we've been aggressively pushing to secure the border every single day of this Congress.

00:33 Since the Republicans took the majority, we've been working on it every day. We have pieces

00:39 of HR two that will be advancing. But the problem is, we already know it's not a lawmaking

00:44 exercise. If the Senate, Senate Democrats and the White House were interested in solving

00:50 the border, we could have done this a long time ago. Limits are fine, but it's not going

00:54 to solve the problem. It is not going to solve the problem. January 3rd of this year, we

00:58 took 64 Republicans, House Republicans down to the border at Eagle Pass, and we had it

01:02 was the largest congressional trip ever to the border. And we talked with the people

01:05 in charge. We visited the processing centers at the time. Eagle Pass was the epicenter.

01:10 They cleaned it up and changed the routes after we showed up down there. But they were

01:14 allowing so many people in. It was a countless number. And and what they told us there was,

01:18 they said, You know, I've said this in this room before. The deputy chief of Border Patrol,

01:23 the 33 year veteran of the agency, said, We don't need more buckets. We need to stop the

01:29 flow. He said, It's as if I'm having to minister an open fire hydrant. Who opened the fire

01:33 hydrant? Joe Biden did. They knocked the cap right off of that thing, and it's been flowing

01:38 ceaselessly for three and a half years plus. Our estimate is that there's at least 10,

01:44 12 million, maybe as many as 16 or 17 million illegals have come across the border in that

01:48 time. Where do we get that number? The DHS numbers, the official numbers are over 10

01:53 million now, and they count over three million, I think, known gotaways. But we don't know

01:57 how many people came in totally undetected because we know there are wide sections of

02:02 the border that are not adequately protected. At Eagle Pass, they told us 60 to 70 percent

02:06 of the people who came through there were single adult males between the ages of 18

02:10 and 45 of military capability. These are not huddled masses of families seeking refuge

02:15 and asylum. These are people coming in probably to do us harm. It doesn't take a big stretch

02:19 of the imagination to do it. Look, Joe Biden knows all this. He knows it. If he would just

02:24 reinstate remain in Mexico, that would reduce the flow by 70 percent. He will not even consider

02:31 it. He will not even consider it. Mexico just got a new president elected. Now would be

02:35 a great time to reestablish some boundaries here to do this. Joe Biden won't even consider

02:40 it. Why? Because they actually want the border open, and that's why we're so frustrated about

Speaker Johnson: Why Biden's New Border Security Executive Order 'Is Not Going To Solve The Problem'

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