Johnson criticizes Biden’s border tactics as an “election-year gimmick”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., excoriated President Joe Biden for “brazenly” misleading the public about his authority to address the southern border crisis but said that ultimately, any talk of Biden now thinking of addressing the border amounts to “election-year gimmicks.”

Johnson released a statement Thursday reacting to Wednesday’s report that Biden is mulling executive action that would stem the flow of migrants through changes to asylum standards and stricter points of entry. This after emphatically telling Americans he needed Congress to give him authority to use executive action and after Johnson telling Biden he had the power already.

“Now, in an election year, after the president has surrendered the border to cartels and smugglers … the President suddenly seems interested in trying to make a change using the legal authority that he claimed until recently didn’t exist,” Johnson said in the statement.

“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,” he added.

It was reported Wednesday that Biden is mulling authority known as 212(f), which would “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

This comes weeks after Biden pleaded with congressional lawmakers to just “give me the power.”

“I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office,” Biden said on Jan. 30. “Give me the Border Patrol, give me the people, the judges — give me the people who can stop this, and make it work right.”

Johnson said then that Biden’s claim was “simply not true.” In fact, Johnson laid out that day that 212(f) was one of four options on the table for Biden to enact immediately.

He reminded Americans of Biden’s dishonesty on Thursday.

“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,” Johnson wrote. “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 asylum policy. He should begin by reinstituting the “Remain in Mexico” policy and ending his administration’s abuse of the parole system, along with other crucial reforms.”