EAGLE PASS — Democratic President Joe Biden, and his possible Republican rival for the November elections, Donald Trump, They made parallel visits to the US-Mexico border, while seeking popular support on one of the most critical issues of the electoral campaign: migration.
This kind of duel in Texas It comes as a record number of migrant crossings through unauthorized passages into the United States creates a major threat to Biden’s chances of preventing Trump’s return to power.
A few months before the elections, Biden is trying to change his open border policy that he has maintained during more than three years in the White House, which has allowed the entry of more than 9,000,000 undocumented immigrants, according to reports from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP). The migration crisis is already affecting large cities.
Trump, 77, landed in Eagle Pass, Texas, and minutes later Democrat incumbent Biden, 81, arrived in Brownsville, Texas, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the east.
What is at stake
The visits, less than eight months before Americans go to the polls, highlight how much is at stake on the border issue, mainly for Biden.
The visits occur when this Thursday a judge temporarily blocked a Texas law promoted by Governor Greg Abbott, which since March allowed the detention, imprisonment or expulsion of migrants who have crossed the border through unauthorized steps and who remain in the state.
Abbott, who claims to seek protection from his state, announced that he appealed this decision, which is part of a judicial dispute between the federal and state governments over border control.
On his second border trip since taking office in 2021, Biden met with border patrol and other agents, before giving a speech urging Republicans to stop “blocking his immigration reforms,” which he is promoting close to the election and due to pressure, even from his own party.
Republicans have rejected Biden’s proposed border legislation months before the election, arguing that it stimulates the immigration policy that the White House has maintained.
But Democrats blame Trump for not passing the law. “Simply because the former president (Trump) told him to,” White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters on Air Force One.
Biden was accompanied by his immigration chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, who was accused by Republicans in the House of Representatives two weeks ago, ensuring that he is not doing his job and they hold him responsible for the immigration chaos.
“Very dangerous”
More than 3.2 million migrants crossed the US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela as they flee poverty, violence and climate change disasters.
For Trump, his hardline anti-immigration stance has been central to his political identity for years, and he has promised the largest deportation program ever undertaken in the United States if he returns to the White House.
“Good weather, beautiful day but a very dangerous border, we are going to take care of it,” the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination told reporters upon landing in Eagle Pass.
Trump’s campaign described the border as a “crime scene” and said the former president would “outline his plan to put America first and secure the border immediately after taking office.”
The rival visits also underscored the candidates’ radically different views on the situation on the southern border.
“Challenging”
Biden’s trip to Brownsville seeks to show how his border measures are working, in an area where so-called migrant “encounters” dropped by nearly a quarter in January.
Republicans blame Biden for the flow of migrants, while the White House says Trump’s party is deliberately sabotaging a bipartisan attempt to find a solution.
But polls show the issue is a weakness for Biden’s bid for a second term, and a poll by US broadcaster NBC in February showed Trump leading Biden by 30 points on the issue of immigration.
Biden insisted earlier this week that he had not deliberately planned the schedule clash with Trump, and said he didn’t know his “good friend” would also be going.
Guerra
“The United States of America is being invaded,” he said.
Trump was in Eagle Pass, about 325 miles (525 kilometers) northwest of Brownsville, in the corridor through which the largest number of migrants are currently passing. He went to a local park that has become a Republican symbol of defiance of the federal government on immigration.
Gov. Greg Abbott and soldiers from the Texas National Guard gave him a guided tour, showing the wire fences they had put up on Abbott’s orders and in defiance of an order from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This is like a war,” Trump said.
Source: With information from AFP
