House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation of over 60 House Republicans to the southern border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas.

The Republicans used the trip to criticize President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration policies.

To provide the Democratic and Republican views of the trip and to preview what the year ahead will look like in politics, both former Sen. Barbara Boxer and former Rep. Mimi Walters joined “Inside the Issues” host Amrit Singh.

Boxer viewed the trip as more of a photo-op and criticized the Republicans for not focusing on working on a solution in Congress.

“It was a stunt, and it didn’t do a thing,” Boxer said. “If this new speaker is interested in working on this issue, he should have taken the 60 people in his caucus and gone back to work in Washington.”

Walters disagrees that Johnson’s trip was only a political stunt and was more of a way to face the issues. 

“We’ve had [sic] fentanyl coming across our borders. We’ve had human trafficking. And they really wanted to highlight the issues we are facing with people coming into this country illegally,” Walters said. 

In December, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection processed over 300,000 migrants, which set a record for the number of migrants processed in one month.

“President Biden has not done a good job at securing our border,” Walters said. “The fact that we’ve had an unprecedented amount of people coming across our borders speaks to the fact that the president has not done his job in protecting us.”

Although Boxer believes when it comes to securing the border, it’s up to the House Republicans to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats to find a bipartisan solution.

“What they’re doing is wrong. They are going to try to blame it on the president. I think it’s going to backfire, because no one gets everything they want,” Boxer said.