Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden each made trips to the southern border Thursday as the crisis at the border steadily becomes one of the top issues for the 2024 presidential election.
“What he’s done to our country is he’s destroying our country,” Trump said during the trip. “We were just talking before, the general was saying, he can’t believe what’s happening. They can’t believe it’s so sad.”
“Last year, almost half of all ICE arrests were criminal aliens charged for more than 33,000 assaults, 3,000 robberies, 6,900 burglaries, 7,500 weapons crimes…These are the people that are coming into our country and they’re coming from jails and they’re coming from prisons and they’re coming from mental institutions,” Trump continued.
Biden remains under fire for his border policies with a recent poll showing that only 26% of Americans support his handling of the border. Even so, the White House continues to point fingers at Republicans, calling them to pass a border security bill amongst other measures.
“He will discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said about Biden’s border trip.
“He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more,” she continued.
Trump and Biden, the frontrunners to receive their respective party’s nomination, made their Texas trips approximately 300 miles apart with Trump visiting Eagles Pass and Biden visiting Brownsville.
🚨Trump meets with Texas National Guard during Eagle Pass, TX border visit
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 29, 2024
The cities chosen by the two men were as different as their border policies. Brownsville has seen just 46 migrant encounters in the past five days and is the 29th most trafficked town by migrants. Eagle Pass had more than 2,000 encounters in the past five days and is the site of an ongoing court battle involving Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX).
Trump has made Biden’s handling of the border crisis a centerpiece of his campaign and appears content to continue doing so moving forward.
