Former President Donald Trump is visiting the border in Texas on Thursday where he said it has become “very dangerous,” but vowed he would “take care of it” if he’s re-elected.
Mr. Trump spoke at the airport in Del Rio before heading to Eagle Pass, a border town that has become the epicenter of the clash between Texas and President Biden.
“A very dangerous border,” Mr. Trump said in brief remarks. “We’re going to take care of it.”
Mr. Biden is making his own border visit several hundred miles away in Brownsville, Texas, where the White House says he will blame Mr. Trump for the ongoing problems with the immigration system. He argues Mr. Trump cajoled Republicans into opposing a bipartisan border bill that was filibustered in the Senate several weeks ago.
Mr. Trump, in an op-ed in The Daily Mail ahead of his trip, rejected the blame, saying he turned over a secure border and Mr. Biden broke it.
“Biden stopped wall construction. He ordered an immediate suspension of removals. He ripped up Remain in Mexico. He terminated my asylum agreements. He ended Title 42. He tied the hands of our ICE and Border Patrol agents behind their backs. He made it known to the entire world that our border was wide open,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Biden is not expected to offer any new solutions at the border, but will instead beg Congress to revive the border bill.
That legislation would have given the president new expulsion powers curtailed some uses of “parole” and tightened the rules on asylum. It would also have blessed Mr. Biden’s use of catch-and-release as the standard practice for many illegal immigrants, with the hope that they could be sped to faster immigration court decisions.
Analysts debated how much of the illegal immigrant flow would be derailed by it.
The proposal was defeated in a bipartisan filibuster, with a handful of Democrats joining most Republicans. The GOP lawmakers said the deal was too weak on illegal immigration while the Democratic opponents said it was too tough on those hoping to claim asylum.
Even if it had cleared the Senate GOP leaders in the House said it would not see action in their chamber.