US President Joe Biden to go to border city of Brownsville, Texas as Donald Trump heads to Eagle Pass, Texas.
US President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, his doubtless Republican opponent within the November election, will make separate visits to the US-Mexico border on Thursday as immigration has grow to be a key concern for voters.
Biden, who has been on the defensive on the problem in latest months, will use a go to to the border city of Brownsville, Texas, to spotlight how Republican lawmakers rejected a bipartisan effort to toughen immigration insurance policies on Trump’s orders.
Biden will meet border patrol brokers and customs and regulation enforcement officers and ship remarks on Thursday.
“He is going because it’s important to highlight that Republicans are getting in the way here,” stated White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Biden took workplace in 2021 promising to reverse the hardline immigration insurance policies of Trump, however has since toughened his personal method.
Under stress from Republicans who accuse him of failing to regulate the border, Biden known as on Congress final yr to offer extra enforcement funding and stated he would “shut down the border” if given new authority to show again migrants.
Biden might be joined by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Republican legislators earlier this month narrowly voted to question over his dealing with of the border. The Democratic-led Senate, nevertheless, is unlikely to vote to take away Mayorkas from workplace.
Trump, who as president from 2017 to early 2021 thought-about a tricky border stance to be a signature concern for him, has accused Biden of bungling border points. He will go to Eagle Pass, Texas, the place arrivals have posed an issue for authorities in latest months.
Karoline Leavitt, nationwide press secretary for the Trump marketing campaign, known as the border a “crime scene” in an announcement and stated the previous president on the go to will define a plan to “secure the border immediately upon taking office”.
A Reuters-Ipsos ballot from January 31 discovered rising concern amongst Americans about immigration, with 17 % of respondents itemizing it as crucial drawback going through the US at present, up sharply from 11 % in December. It was the highest concern of Republican respondents, with 36 % citing it as their principal fear, above the 29 % who cited the economic system.
Trump might be joined by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose administration has been constructing a army “base camp” at Eagle Pass to discourage migrants.
Eagle Pass stays a flashpoint in a heated partisan debate over border safety regardless that the variety of migrants caught crossing with out papers into each there and Brownsville dropped sharply in January and February.
The variety of migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border with out papers hit a month-to-month file of 250,000 in December, however dropped by half in January, a development US officers attribute to elevated Mexican enforcement and seasonal traits.
Abbott, a Republican, has deployed 1000’s of National Guard troops and laid concertina wire and river buoys to discourage unlawful immigration by a program known as Operation Lone Star.
Immigration enforcement traditionally has been the purview of the federal authorities, and Abbott’s actions have sparked authorized and political standoffs with the Biden administration and immigrant rights activists.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/biden-and-trump-border-visits-highlight-immigration-as-election-issue?traffic_source=rss
