Boehner on Border Crisis: 'Doing Something is Better than Doing Nothing'

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress must do something to alleviate the ongoing crisis at the border, and President Obama’s plan to take more unilateral action on immigration reform will make the crisis worse, House Speaker John Boehner argued Thursday.

“The crisis on the border is one of the president’s own making, but he still hasn’t learned his lesson,” Boehner told reporters at his weekly press conference. “Now he has threatened to rewrite the law and take more unilateral action on immigration in the coming months. Let me just be clear, such action would create an even greater incentive for more illegal crossing and make the crisis at our border even worse.”

According to Boehner, if the president takes such action, Obama will be “sealing the deal on his legacy of lawlessness.”

The House Speaker further took on Obama for failing to offer his own plan to deal with the crisis of unaccompanied minors and family units illegally streaming across the southern border.

“The President says give me $3.7 billion, but don’t do anything to address the real problem on the border. Just throw more money at it. I think that is wholly irresponsible,” he said. 

The House is expected to vote on the emergency border supplemental bill Thursday afternoon. If it passes, the body will vote on a bill prohibiting expansions of the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“In my view, doing something is better than doing nothing; the crisis on the border is going to continue until the president acts — and he is clearly not going to act — that means the Congress has to act,” Boehner said.

Boehner further slammed Senate Democrats’ “nutso scheme” to push through the Senate immigration bill with the emergency border bill.

“Instead of addressing the crisis at hand, Senate Democrats are talking up some nutso scheme to jam through the Senate immigration bill,” Boehner said. “Even though they know it will never happen, and I’ll say it one more time: the House will not take up the Senate immigration reform bill, or accept it back from the Senate in any fashion, including in this border bill.”

Boehner added that the House will also reject any other immigration reform-related provisions — such as the DREAM Act — the Senate might add. 

“Any attempt to exploit this crisis and these kids by adding such measures would turn into a brick wall here in the people’s house,” he stressed.