Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., criticized President Joe Biden for his comments regarding last month's failed border bill, saying that even though the bill failed, Biden could still take certain executive actions.
During Biden's State of the Union address, Lankford allegedly mouthed "that's true" when Biden said the failed Senate border deal would have hired more Border Patrol agents and immigration judges to make the asylum process faster. Lankford said Biden was saying the truth but omitting actions he could take on his own.
"I could hear some of my colleagues around me saying none of that's true. And I was actually listening. The president said, 'No, that part actually is true.' It would have hired all those additional agents; it would have expedited the process, would have also changed the asylum standard so we can go through much faster," Lankford told CNN's "State of the Union."
"The only way to be able to solve this problem right now legally is to be able to change the asylum standard and to be able to have much faster hearings.
"The problem is the president also left out some of the things that he could do right now, he's choosing not to do. He has a very open parole system that literally thousands of people today are coming across and being rapidly paroled," he said.
"He is not actually doing the what's called the 'last in, first out' for hearings, to be able to deter people from coming across by having faster hearings in the process. So there are multiple executive actions for whatever reason the president's choosing not to do, but there's also legal authorities that need to be done as well."
Jeremy Frankel ✉
Jeremy Frankel is a Newsmax writer reporting on news and politics.
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