Sen. James Lankford to Newsmax: Biden's Border Policy Backward

Vicious lawbreakers are able to enter the United States illegally because the Biden administration has a border policy by which criminal checks are done at the end of the process rather than at the beginning, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Tuesday.

Lankford made the comments after a El Salvador man, who had been in prison in his own country for murder, and illegally fled to the U.S. was arrested over the weekend for the killing last year of a Maryland mother.

The White House announced Tuesday the Biden administration will soon permit certain spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually, citizenship, a move that could affect some half a million people here illegally.

Lankford called the new policy "out of touch" telling "Wake Up America," "this is something I have said all along.

"For years I've said we don't know if people are fleeing from the law or if they are fleeing from poverty: We don't know because [this administration is] not checking it, they are not evaluating it," Lankford added.

"Any criminal checks they are doing for individuals are actually at the end of the process, years after they have been in the country rather than at the very beginning. This is one of the things I have fought for, to have a criminal check at the very beginning and turn people around immediately rather than release them into the country."