WASHINGTON — Though he's a habitue of conservative networks like Fox News, House Speaker Mike Johnson changed course and appeared on CNN this week for the first time since he became leader of the U.S. House.
The Benton Republican also sat down for an interview with CBS News and gave a news conference at the Texas border with Mexico to criticize President Joe Biden on border security.
Johnson’s highly visible two-day trip to Eagle Pass, Texas is an indication of how prominent an issue the border will be when Congress returns to Washington Tuesday facing a tight deadline to agree on how the government will be funded.
Johnson hasn’t specifically linked Democratic agreement on immigration restrictions with compromise on government spending, but the emphasis suggests border security will be a key hurdle to clear if Congress hopes to avoid a government shutdown over the next three weeks. Johnson's success in using the looming crisis to win concessions for the GOP on the border issue and government spending will be key to how long the Louisiana native will remain as leader of the House Republicans.
“One thing is absolutely clear: America is at a breaking point with record levels of illegal immigration,” Johnson said during a Wednesday news conference on the banks of the Rio Grande. “The situation here and across the country is truly unconscionable.”
Ultraright Freedom Caucus members have said they are willing to shut down the government unless House-passed legislation imposing far tougher border restrictions becomes law.
Johnson refused to say whether the rest of the Republican House majority would go along with the Freedom Caucus, but told CNN that most House Republicans would respond to their constituents, most of whom want to make it harder to enter the country. “We are resolved on that,” Johnson said.
The Republican border bill has not been entertained by the Democratic-majority Senate.
It would impose restrictions that would limit immigration, such as requiring asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico until their court date. At the start of his term, Biden revoked the policy, which Mexico also opposes, on humanitarian grounds.
"On his first day in office, President Biden came in and issued executive orders that began this chaos," Johnson told CBS’ "Face the Nation."
He likened the Biden policies to a “welcome mat” that enticed millions to attempt to enter the country.
The Biden administration and its Democratic allies point out that they seek an additional appropriation of $14 billion to increase the number of agents to round up immigrants crossing the borders without proper documentation and to hire more judges to speed up asylum claims. Right now, only about 800 judges are plowing through about 3 million requests.
“That won’t do a darn thing,” Johnson said of the funding request. What is needed, he said, is a policy to deny entry for most immigrants, which the House Republicans' bill would essentially do.
Johnson’s communication director, Raj Shah, released Thursday a memo that called Biden’s funding request “more smoke and mirrors.”
The memo stated: "Of the $14 billion request, just over $2.3 billion, or less than 17%, would actually go to Border Patrol operations. Of that funding, much of it falls within the parameters of managing the crisis — processing tents, medical services, consumables, etc. — that have little to do with actual border security and interior enforcement and more to do with processing illegal immigration into the interior as fast as possible.”
Illegal immigration really isn’t much of an issue in Louisiana. The state has an estimated 58,000 undocumented immigrants out of a total population of 4.6 million, according to the American Immigration Council. Almost all of them live in or near New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
With inflation slowing, gasoline prices dropping and employment at historic highs, the economy is fast becoming a nonissue in Biden’s 2024 reelection bid. But the president remains vulnerable on the surge of immigrants at the southern border.
Big-city Democratic mayors, like New York’s Eric Adams, have complained about the costs of housing immigrants bussed there by Republican governors like Greg Abbott, of Texas.
A bipartisan group of senators has reported making progress in negotiations with the White House on securing the border as part of a compromise that would also fund Ukrainian and Israeli war efforts.
Johnson told freshman Republicans Thursday that he too is considering negotiating directly with the Biden administration on border issues, Punchbowl, a Capitol Hill newsletter reported Friday.