House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday said President Biden is engineering the chaos at the border to funnel more illegal immigrants into the country to vote.

Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, made the allegations as the House prepares to vote Thursday on a bill that would nix a D.C. law that allows non-citizens to vote in local elections. 

“Many Democrats, many leading Democrats here in Washington want illegal aliens in our country,” Mr. Johnson said. “Why? So they can become voters, and they can affect the outcome of the census to affect reapportionment of Congress.”

He said that a prime example of that plan was in the District of Columbia, where local leaders rolled out a law to allow non-citizens to vote.

The speaker challenged Democrats to vote against the District voting change bill.

“If this voting bill can’t pass, everybody watch very closely,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s going to be proved … that there are some Democrats who want illegal aliens deciding election outcomes.”

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The District has its own government but Congress has oversight authority in the federal city. Republicans have been trying to reverse the non-citizen voting since last year but were rebuked by the Democrat-led Senate and the White House.

The District’s law, which came into effect early last year, allows anyone who has lived in D.C. for more than 30 days to cast ballots in any city contest. They are still prohibited from voting in races for federal office. 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, warned that the current law would allow foreign officials working in embassies, including Russia and China, to vote in local elections. 

“Why should somebody at the Russian embassy be able to vote in elections here in the United States of America, yet that is what is allowed today,” Mr. Scalise said. “We have a bill that says no, that’s not the case.”

Republicans are also pushing for a broader law that would prevent illegal immigrants from voting in federal elections by amending a 1993 law to force people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. That bill will likely appear on the House floor in June.

• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.