Democratic President Joe Biden and his possible Republican rival for the November elections, Donald Trumpmade parallel visits to the United States-Mexico border, while seeking popular support on one of the most critical issues of the electoral campaign: migration.
This type of mourning in Texas occurs when 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.
The Republican Trump, 77, landed in Eagle Pass, Texas, and minutes later the current Democrat Biden, 81, arrived in Brownsville, Texasabout 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the east.
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 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 will appeal this decision, which is part of a legal 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 agentsbefore giving a speech urging Republicans to stop blocking his immigration reforms.
Republicans have rejected Biden's proposed border legislation “simply because the former president (Trump) told them 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.
'Very dangerous'
More than 2.4 million migrants crossed the US southern 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.”
For Trump, immigrants are “killing our people, they are killing our country,” in increasingly far-right rhetoric that led him to say last year that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the United States.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.
Mayorkas said Biden would listen to border officials about the “very few resources they have” and how legislation blocked by Republicans would give them the resources they need.
He also advocated for Biden to avoid an area where the crisis was worst, saying Brownsville showed how cooperation between the United States and Mexico had helped reduce border crossings.
“Brownsville offers a very good view of how dynamic and challenging the immigration phenomenon is,” Mayorkas told reporters.
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, the man he defeated in the 2020 election, and said he did not know his “good friend” would also go.
AFP
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