(NewsNation) — Dozens of lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are visiting the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday.
Johnson and the other members of Congress are expected to go to migrant holding facilities at the Del Rio sector in Texas and meet with Border Patrol agents in the state to discuss the ongoing impact of the humanitarian crisis.
The largest Republican delegation to visit the southern border comes at a time when congressional talks in Washington, D.C., on a new border deal have stalled, and officials say there are record crossings.
Officials at the nation’s southern border encountered more than 302,000 migrants in December, the highest monthly total on record, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources confirmed to NewsNation.
The previous high was in September 2023, when authorities recorded 269,735 encounters.
Johnson recently wrote a letter to President Joe Biden urging executive action on border issues and for the administration to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s hardline border policies such as “Remain in Mexico.”
“We are now more vulnerable to a terrorist attack on our homeland than ever,” Johnson wrote in the letter, adding that ending those policies has undermined America’s sovereignty and security.
But a White House spokesperson says it’s actually the Republicans who are compromising America’s national security.
“Today’s statements are just House Republicans’ latest admission that as President Biden and both parties in the Senate seek common ground to address the needs of the American people, their conference is instead choosing extreme politics that would subject American families to needless pain,” spokesperson Andrew Bates said.
