House Speaker Johnson criticizes border crisis, touts SAVE Act

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — House Speaker Mike Johnson took his criticisms of the Biden administration’s border policies straight to our door step in San Diego, holding a press conference at the border wall joined by Congressman Darrell Issa and border officials.

“We have an absolute catastrophe on the border,” Johnson said.

Johnson toured the San Ysidro Port of Entry and Imperial Beach locations Thursday before calling attention to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or “SAVE” Act.

“If someone goes to the local office to sign up for public benefits, they are also handed a short form that says do you want to register to vote? All you have to do to participate in the elections is check a little box and say I’m a U.S. citizen, yes register me to vote. There’s no proof required and we think that’s outrageous,” he said.

As the country faces unprecedented levels of immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, the proposed legislation would require states to obtain proof of citizenship in person when someone registers to vote and remove all non-citizens from voter rolls.

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Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens is already illegal in federal elections.

Meantime, Biden’s June executive order helped curb immigration numbers, but the executive vice president of the union representing border patrol agents says the problem has just been redirected.

“Instead of crossing illegally between the ports asylum seekers, many of whom are only seeking to abuse the system, are now primarily showing up at ports of entry and airports. So much so that customs officers in June encountered more asylum seekers than the border patrol did,” John Anfinsen said.

Johnson also called Vice President Kamala Harris the “border czar,” saying she’s responsible for the disaster at the border.

The White House says Harris worked mainly to address the root cause of why people leave their homes in the first place in places like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“She was never assigned the position of ‘border czar,’ they’re making that up,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The SAVE Act would still need to pass the Senate and be signed off by the president before becoming law.

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