Former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) attended a joint press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, to promote the Election Integrity Act.
inside Press conference At Mar-a-Lago on Friday, President Trump called on President Joe Biden to “immediately close the border,” noted the rise in “immigration crime” in the United States, and then wanted to discuss “election interference.” revealed. and “election integrity.”
“There’s probably 15 million people, and they’re coming from places that they don’t want you to know about, and it’s going to be a big problem, and it’s going to get worse,” Trump said. “It’s an immigration crime. It’s a new category of crime, an immigration crime. And I’m just demanding, I’m just demanding as a citizen that our borders have to be closed. We No country can accept it, no country can accept it. It’s not sustainable for any country.”
Prime Minister Johnson, who was introduced by President Trump, explained that when the House of Representatives is in session, the Speaker is “required to travel around the country and be with all the candidates and incumbents.” He added: to 23 states in the past few weeks.
“Everywhere I go, one of the first questions people ask is the integrity of this election,” Johnson said. “Borders are America’s No. 1 issue. Never before has a political issue scored so high as a concern in polls. And as we’re saying now, every state is a border state. It doesn’t matter who lives where. And election integrity is tied to the border, the lack of border security.”
Johnson went on to accuse Biden of wreaking a “disaster” at the border, saying he and his agency had “sixty-four specific executive actions taken under Secretary Mayorkas from the day he entered the Oval Office.” We have documented our actions.” ” and allowed the borders to be opened.
According to one report, in February 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) experienced 9 million border crossings on the U.S.-Mexico southern border and encountered more than 1.8 million fugitives. press release From the House Homeland Security Committee.
In 2023, data According to the Census Bureau, approximately 17 million illegal immigrants live in the United States.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson went on to point out that there are “threats to the integrity of elections”, in addition to a range of problems arising from the “open borders catastrophe”.
“You need to understand what really matters about federal law. Since 1993, National Voter Registration ActWe call it the Motor Voter Act, and it allows people to sign up to vote when they get their driver’s license,” Johnson explained. “If an individual is just searching or simply stating that they are a citizen, they do not have to prove it. Maybe not, but what we find is that states are now prohibited from asking someone to prove they are a citizen.”
Mr Johnson added that he considered this a “serious problem”.
“What we’re going to do is introduce a bill that House Republicans would require proof of citizenship to vote,” Johnson added. “It seems like common sense, and I think we all agree. We only want American citizens to vote in American elections. But there are some Democrats who don’t want that. We believes that one of their designs, one of the reasons for this open border, is that everyone across the country is asking, “Why are we doing this?” Why do they allow this mess? Why violence? Because they want to convert these people into voters. ”
Johnson added that he and President Trump would “do everything” within their power to “ensure that we have a free and fair election in this country.”
“Without that in a constitutional republic, we have nothing. It’s the foundation of who we are as a nation,” Johnson added. “And we owe that to the American people. So what we’re going to do is every person who registers to vote in a federal election must first prove that they’re an American citizen. The idea is to introduce legislation that requires people not to do that.”
In addition to including “safeguards,” the bill would “require states to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls,” Johnson added.
