(NewsNation) — Following the House GOP visit to the border, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., pushed back against the White House’s accusations of GOP obstruction on border security funding, in an interview on “The Hill.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said earlier, “Instead of joining the Biden Administration and members of both parties in the Senate to find common ground, [House Speaker Mike Johnson] is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country.” 

Lawler dismissed the statement as a “joke” and asserted that House Republicans had taken concrete steps to address border security by passing HR 2, which he touted as the “strongest border security measure in the history of Congress,” seven months ago. 

“The failure here is on the part of the administration whose policies have exacerbated the crisis,” Lawler stated. He argued that since Biden took office, nearly 10 million migrants had crossed the southern border, with the majority entering illegally.  

Lawler criticized the administration for releasing 90% of detained migrants into the country, characterizing the situation as a “dereliction of duty” on the part of Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

Lawler went on to recount his observations during the border visit, highlighting the firsthand experience of witnessing migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande illegally. 

Officials at the nation’s southern border encountered more than 302,000 migrants in December, the highest monthly total on record, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources confirmed to NewsNation.  

The previous high was in September 2023, when authorities recorded 269,735 encounters.