In order to pass a resolution spearheaded by the GOP denouncing President Biden’s immigration policies, fourteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting on Tuesday.
Representative Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from Texas who represents a border area and was selected to provide the Spanish-language rebuttal to Vice President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last week, submitted the resolution.
Her bill accused Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, of “created the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history.”
The Biden administration was also charged in the resolution with intentionally breaking US immigration law by refusing to detain inadmissible immigrants who arrive at the border, as well as advocating asylum policies that some claim exacerbated the border problem.
The vote was made just hours after the newly formed House Democratic task committee on border security had its inaugural press conference and advocated for cross-party solutions to the problem.
They are urging approval of the Senate’s bipartisan $118 billion package for global aid and border security, which has been slammed by Republicans in the House and Senate.
Speaker of the House GOP Conference Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has made immigration and the border crisis a top priority since assuming the position in October.
He brought attention to the problem by leading a delegation of over sixty Republicans to the border between the United States and Mexico earlier this year.
In February, he also guided the House through an unprecedented impeachment vote of Mayorkas. The U.S. Congress had not impeached a Cabinet secretary since 1876 until that point.
