US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visited the US-Mexico border on Thursday (February 29). Biden has urged Congress to reconsider a bipartisan immigration bill that has stalled in the Senate, while Trump has focused on crimes committed by immigrants.
Immigration is expected to be a key issue in the November presidential election, with tens of thousands of immigrants crossing into the United States without authorization every day.
Biden visited Brownsville, Texas, where the number of illegal border crossings into the United States has dropped significantly in recent years and residents have united to help immigrants integrate into American life.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement briefed Biden at the border. He then spoke briefly to the media.
“They desperately need more resources,” Biden said.
accusing Republicans of refusing to accept a bill that has support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. If passed, the bill would make immigration policies more stringent and provide funding to hire more border agents. Trump has urged lawmakers not to pass any bill that doesn’t fully meet their demands.
“This bipartisan border security agreement is a win for the American people; it’s a win for the people of Texas, and it’s fair to those who have the legal right to be here in the first place,” Biden said.
Biden wants Congress to approve more funding for border agents and those processing asylum claims, and if Congress doesn’t act, he may sign an executive order to exercise more control over closing the border. But executive orders have less legal force than legislation passed by Congress and are almost certain to be taken to court by pro-immigration groups.
He also issued a political challenge to Trump.
“Instead of letting members of Congress block this legislation, join me, or I’ll join you, in getting this bipartisan border security bill passed by Congress… You know it, and I know it—this is the first thing our country has ever seen. The toughest, most efficient, and most effective border security bill we’ve ever seen.”
Biden said, “Don’t play politics on this issue; why don’t we come together and get things done?” We work for the American people, not the Democrats or Republicans. We work for the American people.”
President Biden did not take questions from reporters.
About 500 kilometers away, Trump visited Eagle Pass, Texas. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has erected several types of barriers, including barbed wire and rusty shipping containers, to curb traffic crossing the Rio Grande into the United States. Waves of immigration.
Trump criticized Biden’s plan. “This is the Biden invasion of the past three years,” he said.
Trump promised that if he returned to the White House, he would restore the strict immigration policies of his time in office, such as “Remain in Mexico,” which states that immigrants must remain in Mexico until their cases are decided in the United States.
Trump said Biden was responsible for the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia. An immigrant from Venezuela who entered the United States illegally has been charged with her murder.
“America is under criminal occupation by Biden immigrants,” Trump said.
Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told the media that tying immigration to crime is misleading.
He said: “All rigorous and carefully conducted studies show that the crime rate among immigrants, even undocumented immigrants, is much, much lower than that of U.S. citizens. And the crime problem among immigrants is relatively minimal.”
From 2017 to 2021 Early in his term as president, Trump tried to build a border wall and claimed Mexico would pay for it.
While he was president, he built a section of the border wall, but Congress did not grant him the amount of wall funding he had hoped for, and Mexico paid none.
Trump briefly separated parents from their children as people tried to enter the United States, but backed down from that practice amid the outcry that followed.
Lawmakers have endlessly debated the US-Mexico border immigration control policy in Washington for years but have been unable to reach a solution.
Generally speaking, Republicans favor stricter rules to curb immigration into the United States, while Democrats often take a more nuanced approach, such as advocating for permanent residence in the United States for those who entered the United States years ago as children with immigrant parents.
Just recently, three U.S. senators, including a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent, spent months negotiating to draft new immigration controls that would be the most comprehensive in years. Strict measures, and backed by Biden, although progressive Democrats complained that it seemed like a plan that only Trump would propose.
However, Trump still opposed the bill. Trump said the bill was not tough enough and urged Republicans to oppose it. Republicans followed his advice and defeated the bill in the Senate. Democratic critics say Republicans who support Trump’s return to the White House are rejecting the package to deny Biden a record on the controversial issue in an election year.
Although that legislative effort was defeated, Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads a narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives, has demanded that immigration controls on the U.S.-Mexico border be added to the $60 billion military aid to Ukraine bill; otherwise, he will not pass the bill. Put it to a vote by the whole House of Representatives.
Trump is close to clinching the Republican nomination for president, which would be his third consecutive term. He has already targeted Biden. Recent Reuters/Ipsos polls show that immigration is a major concern for many voters and that Biden has a weak spot on the issue. Most recently, House Republicans voted
by one vote to impeach Biden’s immigration chief, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, claiming he allowed chaos at the border and ignored existing immigration restrictions. The Senate trial is expected to begin soon, but with Democrats controlling the chamber, Mayorkas’ conviction and removal from office are highly unlikely.
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