White House scalds Republicans ahead of Speaker Johnson's visit to the southern border today. Will it work?
(TSN): Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has been criticized for not having enough executive level leadership but today he will do something Pres. Joe Biden himself has never done -- take a delegation to the U.S. Mexico border. While there with other GOPers the speaker will hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to address migrant encroachment following the recent record influx of illegal border crossers. The move aims to give Republicans the upper hand on immigration as an inescapable election-year issue.
Republicans continue to excoriate the president for weak policies on border management, yet the White House has turned the table blaming Republicans for dodging cooperation with their plan of action for border security.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates responded to the speaker's planned visit in a statement early Wednesday saying, "Speaker Johnson is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country."
Customs and Border Protection Agency personnel shortages came to light as a mitigating factor last year.
Instead of voting for a border security package that had been folded into a supplemental funding request for Ukraine last December, House Republicans opted to take a break without voting.
“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement," Bates quipped.
However, blame-shifting is a challenge Democrats appear to be losing.
A Pew Research poll conducted last year found that only 32 percent of the participants viewed Biden as capable of making “wise decisions about immigration policy.”
The Biden team is struggling to change public perception about their engagement with the border problem. Vice Pres. Harris went to the border early on and Senior Administration Officials have gone to Mexico to address the issue. On several occasions Pres. Biden has directly conversed with the leader of Mexico about their country part in the migrant and drug crises. Yet it appears Democrats are not doing enough when Republicans boldly intervene with bus migrants to other states and taking frequent trips to the border themselves.
A press conference is an optically daring move that may convey someone is in charge. It may give the impression that Republicans are doing more than the president who has never shown up when the action that counts is in policy-making.
MORE from Bates's statement...
"On Day One, President Biden proposed a comprehensive immigration reform plan and followed up by delivering record border security funding every single year of his term. House Republicans have obstructed his reform proposal and consistently voted against his unprecedented border security funding year after year, hamstringing our border security in the name of extreme, partisan demands.
Actions speak louder than words. House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”