Biden, Trump visit southern border cities, highlighting immigration as key election issue
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visited southern border cities on Thursday in a sign of how central immigration has become to the 2024 election.
Biden visited Brownsville, Texas, and Trump made his way to Eagle Pass, Texas, which is about 325 miles, or about a five-hour, 20-minute drive, apart.
Both cities are longtime Democratic strongholds, but Republicans are gaining, especially in the Eagle Pass area. Trump narrowed his margin of defeat more in Maverick County, home to Eagle Pass, than in Cameron County, where Brownsville is located.
The president walked a quiet stretch of the border along the Rio Grande, and received a lengthy operations briefing from Homeland Security agents who talked to him bluntly about what more they needed.
"I want the American people to know what we're trying to get done," he said to officials there. "We can't afford not to do this."
Biden sought to spotlight the necessity of a bipartisan border security bill that was tanked by Republicans on Trump’s orders, and flat-out asked the Republican front-runner to join him in supporting a congressional push for more funding and tighter restrictions.
"Here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump," Biden said. "Instead of playing politics with the issue, join me, or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bill. You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country’s ever seen."
Trump, who frequently visited the border as president, is again making immigration a signature campaign issue as he seeks to return to the White House in November.
He continued his dialed-up attacks on migrants arriving to the border, deriding them as "terrorists" and criminals after harnessing rhetoric once used by Adolf Hitler to argue migrants are poisoning the blood of America.
"The United States of America is being invaded," he said.
"This is like a war," Trump said.
Gazing out over the river through the razor wire, Trump raised his fist and waved and shouted to people on the Mexico side, who waved back. Then, he declared that migrants arriving to the border were criminals and some were terrorists, a dialed-up version of the accusations he often used during the 2016 campaign. This time, he's started to harness rhetoric once used by Adolf Hitler to argue migrants are poisoning the blood of America.
"They’re being let into our country and it’s horrible," Trump said. "It’s horrible."
Trump also brought up the killing of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia recently. The suspect is a Venezuelan migrant.
"Crooked Joe has the blood of countless innocent victims," Trump said. "It’s so many stories to tell, so many horrible stories."
This was Biden’s second visit to the southern border since his presidency.
The president’s visit comes as a record number of migrants at the border in recent months has been a political liability for Biden.
FILE - US President Joe Biden speaks with US Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023, alongside US President Donald Trump participating in a ceremony commemorating the 200th mile
The number of people who are illegally crossing the U.S. border has been rising for years for complicated reasons that include climate change, war and unrest in other nations, the economy, and cartels that see migration as a cash cow.
The administration’s approach has been to pair crackdowns at the border with increasing legal pathways for migrants designed to steer people into arriving by plane with sponsors, not illegally on foot to the border.
Arrests for illegal crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico fell by half in January, from record highs in December to the third-lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those figures could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election nears.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles.