Former and incumbent presidents, who are likely to face off in a rematch in the U.S. presidential election this November, visited the southern border town of Texas on the 29th (local time) and held a ‘single-legged duel’ over the controversy over illegal immigration, which has emerged as the biggest issue of this presidential election. take place
President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Brownsville, in the southernmost part of Texas, and on the same day, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech in Eagle Pass, where conflict broke out over the installation of a border wall. Earlier this month, the ‘Security Support Package Budget’, which included a border strengthening bill and support for Ukraine, was stranded in the House of Representatives due to opposition from the Republican Party, and on this day, the two people stood about 520km apart and criticized each other for shifting political responsibility for the illegal immigration issue. It looks like it will come out beforehand.
A White House official said on the 26th, “President Biden will meet with Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials in Texas on the 29th to discuss the urgent need to pass a bipartisan border security agreement in the Senate.” NBC analyzed the visit to the hottest region exactly a week before the State of the Union address on the 7th of next month as “an attempt to maximize the political influence of this visit.”
This is President Biden’s second visit to the border city since taking office. When he visited El Paso, Texas, in January last year, he visited a temporary care center for migrants, but it was not revealed that he saw or met migrants. When asked on the 26th, “Will you meet immigrants in person this time?” President Biden avoided giving a direct answer, saying, “I will not talk about it in advance.”
View largerWorkers are assembling border buoys that the state of Texas will install on the Rio Grande River in July of last year. The Biden administration’s Justice Department declared it illegal and demanded its removal from Governor Greg Abbott. Eagle Pass = AP NewsisEagle Pass, visited by former President Trump, is also a symbolic place for the Republican Party. This is because so many illegal immigrants cross the Rio Grande River that it is nicknamed the ‘Gate of Mexico.’ Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, installed an ‘underwater wall’ here last year and eventually received a court order to remove it.
The border issue is President Biden’s most vulnerable point and former President Trump’s key slogan. According to an NBC News poll last month, when asked which presidential candidate would handle the border issue better, 57% of respondents said former President Trump. This figure is well over twice that of President Biden (22%).
President Biden, who had been on the defensive on the border issue, went on a full-scale offensive as the security support package budget plan, which had been bipartisanly agreed upon in the Senate, was defeated in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives due to opposition from former President Trump on the 6th. In his speech that day, President Biden said, “The strongest border security bill has been enacted, and former President Trump is desperately trying to block this bill,” adding, “He is not interested in solving the border problem and wants to make it a political issue.” criticized.
The White House is also considering using executive orders to bypass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The New York Times (NYT) reported that President Biden is considering an executive order that would close the border if an average of more than 5,000 migrants attempt to cross the border illegally per day for a week. However, according to the Associated Press, no information related to the executive order is expected to be announced during the visit on the 29th.
View largerMigrants who crossed the border from Mexico to the United States via the Rio Grande River in October last year are waiting to receive permission from customs and border patrol at Eagle Pass, Texas. Eagle Pass = AP NewsisThe number of illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border has increased sharply recently. It reached an all-time high of 302,000 cases in December last year. The number of immigrants detained while illegally entering the United States under the Biden administration also exceeded 6.3 million, the highest among all previous administrations.
Of course, this is largely due to the explosion of pent-up demand as the pandemic lockdown is lifted in 2021. However, the British BBC analyzed, “As the hard-line stance of the Trump administration was somewhat relaxed under the Biden administration, there was a large aspect in which brokers took advantage of the opportunity to encourage immigrants to rush to cross the border.”
For this reason, the Republican Party has continued to increase the level of criticism against the Biden administration on immigration issues ahead of the election. The security support package budget proposal that had been negotiated for several months with the Democratic Party was also overturned as soon as former President Trump announced his opposition. Earlier this month, he launched an impeachment attempt against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The reason the Republican Party is going on the offensive like this is because illegal immigration is emerging as an issue that has a significant impact on voters’ votes. According to a Monmouth University poll released on the 14th, 61% of respondents said illegal immigration is a “very serious problem.” This is a significant increase compared to the 40% range in similar surveys conducted ahead of the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections.
The Washington Post (WP) analyzed, “President Biden is trying to overcome the Republican Party’s advantage by taking a hard line on the immigration issue.” However, there is opposition to the hard-line stance even within the Democratic Party, and as the number of illegal immigrants last month decreased by about half compared to last December, there is a possibility that they will try to control the level.
View largerLast November, former President Trump was distributing food to members of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) at South Texas International Airport in Edinburg, Texas, USA, on Thanksgiving Day. Edinburgh = AP NewsisWhen President Biden’s schedule was reported on the 26th, the Trump camp, which first revealed the Texas visit schedule, mocked, saying, “Biden’s handlers are sending him to the same place on the same day as former President Trump because they are currently losing greatly.” . In her statement, spokeswoman Caroline Levitt strongly condemned Biden, saying, “Americans know that Biden is fully responsible for the worst immigration crisis in history and a crime crisis that affects every community in America.”
Former President Trump also re-emphasized his high-intensity anti-immigration pledge on his social media that day, saying, “If I become president, I will immediately close the border and begin the largest operation to deport illegal criminals in U.S. history from the first day of office.” Referring to the recent murder of an American schoolgirl by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, he claimed, “The monster who took her life entered the country illegally in 2022, injured a child, and was released by left-wing Democrats in New York in 2022.”
He is solidifying his hard-line response to illegal immigration as his ‘brand’ by using harsh language, such as saying in December of last year that illegal immigrants “contaminate the blood of America.” He pledged anti-immigration policies such as the abolition of the ‘birthright citizenship system’, which automatically grants American citizenship to people born in the United States, and the large-scale deportation of illegal immigrants.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.