President Biden plans to make a rare visit to the southern border on Thursday, with former President Donald J. Trump is traveling to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day he had already planned a trip to the border, his press secretary said.
Mr. The plans underscore the urgency Biden and his team have on immigration, which has become one of his most pressing political responsibilities. Under the Biden administration, record numbers of immigrants have crossed the southern border — Mr. Mr. Trump and Republicans They have used it aggressively against Biden.
Most Americans think Mr. Biden disagrees with job performance and opinion polls program Voters who disapprove of him cite immigration as a reason more than any other policy issue.
On his Thursday trip to Brownsville, Mr. Biden plans to meet with Border Patrol, law enforcement and local officials, Mr. The president is expected to lay the blame for the migration crisis on House Republicans, who have blocked a bipartisan package that would enact tougher border controls, and call on Congress to come together to meet the challenge.
Mr. Biden is considering executive actions to prevent border crossers from seeking asylum, but Ms. Jean-Pierre did not mention any of the new policies he would announce.
“His going is an act,” she said. “He takes this very seriously.”
Mr Trump will visit Eagle Pass in Texas on Thursday. CNN reported the planned trip last week. To highlight the immigration crisis, Mr. To lay the blame at Mr. Biden's feet and to offer comments from the border. Mr. Trump, who is not authorized to discuss the plans publicly, plans to A person close to Trump says.
Mr. Trump is expected to highlight crimes committed by immigrants in New York and other cities, as well as the recent high-profile arrest of an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela. murder of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, the person added.
On Monday, Mr. After news of Biden's visit was announced, Mr. Trump sought to blame his rival for the killing, writing on his social media site, “When I am your president, we will immediately close the border and stop the invasion. , and on day one, we will begin the largest deportation of illegal criminals in American history!”
Mr. Biden's visit to Brownsville, which has historically felt the effects of an increase in illegal crossings, comes as the White House tries to prioritize its political strategy at the border. For most of his tenure, Mr. Biden and his aides have avoided talking publicly about the border, though his senior aides have warned early on that the migration crisis could erode his support with voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who faced calls to visit the border in 2021, described the move as a “tremendous gesture” and said she was more focused on addressing the root causes of migration, but she ultimately bowed to pressure and moved to El Paso.
Mr. Biden's aides have spent months debating whether to put more enforcement-minded policies in place at the border to combat the surge in immigration, as Republicans accuse him of being weak on border security.
But for several months at the border Mr. After denouncing Biden, House Republicans blocked a bipartisan immigration bill because Mr. Trump doesn't want Mr Biden to score a policy victory.
Mr. Biden's senior aides say the opposition allowed the White House to go on the offensive and accuse Republicans of simply playing politics at the border and failing to actually defuse the crisis. Democratic officials have pressed the White House to attack Republicans for walking away from a package that includes the kinds of restrictions that even Trump allies have called for over the years.
“The border is in chaos,” Mr. Biden told donors last week in Los Altos Hills, California. “They don't have the staff.” Republicans won't even give the government money for “bentanyl-detecting machines,” he said.
“That doesn't say anything about political courage, what it says about the state of the party,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. The executive order Biden is considering would close the border to new arrivals if an average of 5,000 immigrants try to cross illegally a day in a week or more than 8,500 try to cross in a day. It could be blocked by the courts, but even issuing such an order would allow the White House to deflect accusations that it is avoiding a crisis and keep Republicans under pressure to reach a legislative compromise.
However, where it stops is uncertain. In a White House meeting with governors on Friday during the National Governors Association conference, Mr. Biden to Governors, Mr. He said lawyers told him he couldn't use the measures Trump had. It is not clear which authority he is referring to.
“There is no executive action to do what the bipartisan Senate-negotiated proposal should have done,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “It took four months to get a deal out of the Senate a bipartisan way. Republicans got in the way because of what Donald Trump said.
By visiting the border, Mr. While Biden took nearly a year off, the White House appeared to hope to avoid the political backlash it faced. In a small town.
Mr. Trump filled the void and visited the community in February 2023, just weeks after the derailment, prompting accusations that Mr Biden had ignored the crisis.
