WASHINGTON — This morning, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson discussed House Republicans’ overcoming Democrat objectionsto responsibly end the partial government shutdown, the status of DHS negotiations, and Republicans making tax filing easier for working families.
“We have to make sure we maintain the important parameters here; we can’t go down the road of amnesty. You can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law,” Speaker Johnson said. “That’s what the American people demand and deserve. We want dangerous, illegal criminals to be sent out of the country, and they’ve been very successful at that. But these negotiations are going to go forward.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.
On DHS funding negotiations:
The President obviously has reached out to state and local officials in the state of Minnesota. The events there have been tragic and unnecessary. He’s made clear his desire to deescalate the situation and to support an honest investigation of what’s occurred there. We now have Tom Homan in charge of operations there, and he’s an extraordinary leader. He has 40 years’ experience. He’s highly decorated, has worked in Democrat and Republican administrations, and he knows what he’s doing. And there’s more order being brought to the chaos. Now, I want to hasten to say that the chaos is because in large measure, the local and state officials in Minnesota have not been participating with federal law enforcement operations. And they’ve created a dangerous situation there. And that is really a big part of the problem here.
The White House and the Senate continued in good faith. They’ve agreed to separate the Homeland Security funding bill, and that’s fine. So, we have two weeks now to negotiate in good faith on both sides. The White House and Senate Democrats are going to engage in that, but the House Republicans are as well. We have to make sure we maintain the important parameters here; we can’t go down the road of amnesty. You can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law. That’s what the American people demand and deserve. We want dangerous, illegal criminals to be sent out of the country, and they’ve been very successful at that. But these negotiations are going to go forward.
On the effects of a shutdown on DHS:
If the Democrats do insist on keeping the government shut down, their pointless obstruction is going to have no effect on border security. We’ve secured our immigration enforcement, as has been noted by the leaders here this morning. We did fund ICE operations for a few years now. What they’ll be shutting down, don’t lose this, what they’ll be shutting down is FEMA operations as we’re cleaning up from the winter storms. They’ll be shutting down TSA, which is obviously necessary to keep the country moving through our airports. Coast Guard operations, I mean, so many important functions in the Department of Homeland Security is what will be adversely affected by these partisan games.
Let’s hope and pray that they don’t do that. Let’s hope that over the next two weeks we can negotiate and get this done. They say they want a real negotiation with President Trump and Republicans over immigration enforcement policy, and we are happy to have that debate. And I said in a gaggle earlier this morning that what must be a part of that discussion is the participation of blue cities in federal immigration enforcement. You can’t go to a sanctuary city and pretend like the law doesn’t apply there. It does. And so, we are going to be working through all that.
On Republicans making tax filing easier for working families:
Last week marked the beginning of tax season, and millions of American families are working through that right now, and they’re recognizing the amount of time and money spent complying with the Federal tax code is going to be significantly reduced this year because of great Republican policy, some of the things we did in the Working Families Tax Cuts, the big beautiful bill. Obviously, we intended to cut taxes and to advance America First pro-growth policies, but we also sought to reduce the tax burden on Americans because we know that reform in the tax system isn’t just about reducing rates, it’s also about reducing the paperwork and the compliance burden on Americans. And you heard these stats, I’ll repeat them, but our Working Families Tax Cuts locked in the doubled standard deduction, it boosted it further to $31,500 for American families. That’s a lot of money to hardworking folks. And again, we remind you, Democrats voted against all those great reforms.
These successful reforms are going to save Americans 210 million hours per year in paperwork and $13 billion in compliance costs. That’s real money to real people, and we’re proud of that. Nobody likes paying taxes, but Republicans have reduced the amount you owe and made your returns significantly easier to file.
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