The White House opened Wednesday’s press briefing with an admonition: Republicans carry the blame for the border crisis.

“For years, Republicans have refused to heed the president’s request for action on much-needed funding for border security,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said as part of a lengthy opening statement. “Without exception, House Republicans have tried to stop the president from delivering the resources we need at the border.”

Immigration is President Joe Biden’s worst-polling issue, for which he’s saddled with a 32% approval rating. Amid discussions on Capitol Hill about a bill designed to address immigration, the Biden administration is ramping up its message that the border is a problem — but one for which the GOP is to blame.

“I’ve done all I can do,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday. “Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office. Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the people — give me the people, the judges. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.”

Republicans contend that Biden has plenty of power already and that he’s used it almost universally to make border enforcement weaker.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made that case during his own lengthy remarks on Wednesday, accusing Biden of maintaining a “deliberately opened” border and calling on him to use executive action to stop the surge.

There’s no denying that illegal immigration has increased since Biden entered the White House.

The previous record high number of annual border apprehensions was 1.64 million, set in fiscal 2000. That total has been surpassed each year Biden has been in office, with 1.66 million apprehensions in fiscal 2021 (which began with Donald Trump still in office), 2.2 million in 2022, and 2 million in 2023.

Republicans argue that the executive actions Biden took in his first week as president led to the surge.

“We have a catastrophe at the southern border. It is because the border has been deliberately opened wide that we see the terrific horrors that are taking place across the border right now,” Johnson said in a 30-minute speech. “I’m here this morning to beg my colleagues to help us force the administration to take action.”

The White House says it has called repeatedly for action on the border, first through a day-one bill Biden sent to Congress and now through a national security bill that Biden says would include the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border the country has ever had.

Thus, in the Biden administration’s telling, Republicans are causing the crisis through their refusal to negotiate with the president on a solution.

In a memo, the White House called out Johnson for hypocrisy, referencing previous statements he made implying that only Congress could fix the border, which seem to contradict the notion that Biden could make fixes on his own.

Conservatives point specifically to Biden’s ending the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which had immigrants await their asylum hearings in that country, as the cause of an uptick in immigrants who headed for the border knowing they’d be allowed into the United States.

“The border numbers don’t lie, the results don’t lie,” the Heritage Foundation’s Lora Ries said. “He could get control of that border right away if he wanted to. But he doesn’t.”

Ries, director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center, argues that the reforms Biden seeks would make the situation worse, as he would shower cities with money to spend on immigrants and speed work permits that would compel even greater numbers of immigrants to arrive at the southern border.

In any case, the war of words reflects the high electoral stakes surrounding the issue. Trump made immigration the signature focus of his successful 2016 presidential campaign, and it arguably remains his calling card as he seeks a nonconsecutive second term.

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Biden’s shift upon taking office reflected what his administration said would be a more humane approach to immigration, in sharp contrast to Trump’s promises to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

But as border crossings surged and busing programs led to immigrants straining the budgets of cities such as New York and Chicago, the Biden administration has slowly shifted its stance toward greater enforcement. It will hope to change things with the congressional negotiations — and keep the pressure on Republicans in the process.