House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed President Joe Biden's upcoming executive action on immigration, calling it "too little, too late."
The criticism comes despite Johnson's previous advocacy for executive measures to address immigration issues, according to Politico.
During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," the Louisiana Republican told host Shannon Bream: "He's [Biden] trying to desperately show the American people somehow that he wants to address the issue that he himself created.
"We documented 64 specific actions that President Biden and Secretary [Alejandro Mayorkas] at [the Department of Homeland Security] took over ... the course of three and a half years, beginning on the first day that President Biden [took office], to open the border. They did it intentionally; it's had catastrophic effects upon our country that we'll be living with for decades to come."
Despite a recent decline in border crossings, Biden is expected to sign an executive order that aims to significantly limit asylum requests.
It was reported last week that the White House was nearing completion of the order and the proposed order would automatically deny entry to migrants once the number of individuals encountered by U.S. border officials surpasses a new daily threshold.
Efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform have repeatedly stalled in recent years, including during Johnson's tenure as Speaker.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan Senate proposal by Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) had failed after former President Donald Trump opposed it.
Johnson's stance on executive action has also shifted over time. In December 2023, he urged Biden to use executive orders to curb immigration, saying that existing laws provided the necessary authority.
"I urge you to immediately take executive actions available to you under existing laws to stem the record tide of illegal immigration," Johnson wrote in a letter then.
However, by February, Johnson had changed his tone, dismissing potential executive actions from Biden as election-year theatrics.
"The president suddenly seems interested in trying to make a change using the legal authority that he claimed until recently didn't exist," he said then.
A White House spokesperson has criticized Congressional Republicans for neglecting border security and obstructing efforts to reform the nation's immigration system.
The spokesperson said: "They do not care about securing the border or fixing America's broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history. Instead, they put partisan politics ahead of our country's national security.
"While Congressional Republicans chose to stand in the way of additional border enforcement, President Biden will not stop fighting to deliver the resources that border and immigration personnel need to secure our border."
