On a day made for split-screens and picture-in-picture, former President Donald Trump and President Biden made near-simultaneous trips to Texas Thursday and offered very different prescriptions for the migrant crisis that has overwhelmed authorities at the US-Mexico border.
In Eagle Pass, ground zero for the most recent surge, Trump decried what he called a “Joe Biden invasion” of American territory.
In Brownsville, 325 miles to the southeast, Biden, 81, demanded Republicans in Congress “show a little spine” and approve a bipartisan supplemental spending bill that he said offered “more resources” to address the crisis.
Trump, who arrived at his destination earlier in the day, was given a tour of the area by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and members of the Texas National Guard, who showed off razor wire put up at a local park to deter migrants from crossing the Rio Grande into America.
“This is like a war,” Trump said before calling out a wave of high-profile crimes by migrants across America — including the recent murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student, by a Venezuelan national who was charged by New York officials with child endangerment, but released before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could send him back home.
Trump, 77, the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination, said he had spoken to Riley’s parents and called her the “best nursing student there was” — but predicted that Biden would never dare to mention her name.
The 45th president also vowed he would reinstate hard-line border policies that were scrapped by his successor — including Title 42, which provided for rapid removal of asylum-seekers; and the Remain in Mexico policy, which required migrants to wait south of the border for their claims of persecution to be adjudicated.
“This is a Biden invasion over the past three years,” Trump said. “I call him Crooked Joe, because he’s crooked. He’s a terrible president and the worst president our country has ever had.”
A few moments later, in Brownsville, Biden said border agents “desperately need more resources” in “order to secure our border,” but refused to announce any executive actions that Republicans say he can take right away to crack down on new arrivals.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Biden said. “Months ago, my team began a serious negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators … it resulted in a compromise bill, it was the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.”
The president also mentioned Trump by name while calling on him to urge Republicans to get behind the $118 billion legislation, which stalled in the Senate earlier this month.
“I understand my predecessor is in Eagle Pass today,” Biden said. “So here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with this issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together.”
Biden then spoke about the need to reform the asylum process, saying it takes “far too long” to decide a claim.
“Today, the process to get a decision on asylum claim takes five to seven years,” Biden said.
“You come in, you say ‘I have a credible fear’… and what happens? You say, ‘Well, OK, you can come in the country but come back in five to seven years, maybe as many as eight years, and you get a hearing from — before a judge to determine whether you can stay.’”
“This encourages more people to come to the country if they got another five, seven, eight years before they have to do anything,” Biden went on.
“With new policies in this bill and an additional 4,300 additional asylum officers, we will be able to reduce that process to less than six months. That would have a serious deterrent effect on those coming,” he argued.
“When criminal gangs say, ‘We’ll get to the north but it’s $8,000,’ [migrants] are going to say, ‘Let me get this straight. I’m gonna go north, it’s gonna cost me six, eight, probably closer to eight, I guess, thousand dollars, and I’m gonna get there and in six months they may be able to get rid of me.’
“If a person who’s thinking about entering the United States understands the case is to be decided in a few weeks or months instead of five to seven years, they’re less likely to come in the first place. They are not going to pay the cartels thousands of dollars to make that journey knowing that we turned around quickly.”
The president was questioned about Riley after the conclusion of his remarks, but did not respond as he walked off stage.
“Joe Biden said Thursday that ‘it’s time to act’ on the border crisis. Has Joe Biden forgotten the first three years of his presidency?” the pro-Trump MAGA Inc., super PAC blasted out in a responding statement. “He already acted on the border. He rescinded President Trump’s effective policies that secured our nation.”
The former president’s choice of venue was no accident.
Eagle Pass has been at the forefront of a legal battle between Abbott and the Biden administration over the state’s right to take action securing the border with National Guardsman and buoys in addition to the razor wire.
By contrast, Brownsville has been receiving dozens of illegal migrant crossings per day — a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds who had been crossing into Eagle Pass before Abbott’s crackdown.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to say why the administration chose to go to Brownsville specifically, only saying Biden “wanted to show that it was important for him to go down there to hear from Border Patrol agents, to hear from first responders on what’s going on on the ground.”
Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who joined Biden in his border visit, blasted Abbott’s efforts to “undermine federal border enforcement” in Eagle Pass.
“This visit is focused on the work that we do, not the rhetoric of others,” he said. “This is focused on operational needs, operational challenges and the significant impact that legislation would have in enhancing our border security.”
