House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is doubling down on the false claim that open borders are to be blamed for the terrorist attack in New Orleans.
Police say a man intentionally drove a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 30 others.
The suspect in the attack is identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas who had previously served in the Army Reserve. Authorities say Din Jabbar was carrying an ISIS flag in the truck.
In an interview on Fox News Thursday morning Johnson blamed the “wide open border” for the attack, even though the alleged terrorist is an American citizen.
“The congressional Republicans, we here in the House and the Senate, have repeatedly asked the DHS under the Biden administration about the correlation, the obvious concern about terrorism and the wide open border,” Johnson said. “The idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country.”
“This is the thing that we were all concerned about. This is why we raised the alarms,” he added. “The Biden administration has a lot to account for here, and we see now, in glaring view of everybody, that this dereliction of duty has real consequences.”
