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The two presidents visited the US southern border on Thursday, amid a spectacle that explains why America’s polarized politics has failed to repair an immigration system that has been broken for decades. emphasizes the centrality of rapid immigration to the United States.
Joe Biden and his predecessor and potential successor, Donald Trump, have been trumpeting various border crossings in Texas as they engage in heated debates about what everyone now recognizes as a crisis. We plan to visit the following areas.
The two sides have already feuded over the first term’s record on immigration, and this visit would be the most visible manifestation of a potential rematch.
The former president will be in Eagle Pass, the site of a border showdown between the Biden administration and Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. His visit will paint a bleak picture of a country besieged by a torrent of immigrant criminals and alleged invaders. This is a story where, like in 2016, he hopes to be successfully elected president. Trump has promised mass deportations and concentration camps if he regains the White House, unleashing some of the most extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric in modern America. history. The obvious inhumanity is a key point as he promises revenge on the powerful man in office and provokes the anger of his base of voters.
Biden, who has spent much of his term on the defensive on border issues, is scheduled to visit Brownsville after embracing tougher rhetoric and policies. The president is hoping to turn the tables on Republicans, including Trump, who are clearly trying to steal an election-year victory by defeating a bipartisan Senate bill that includes many conservative goals. Biden’s first border visit in 13 months comes after months of efforts by the White House to hide the immigration issue, followed by tense discussions among aides as the issue turns into a political liability. a source told CNN. His aides believe the stalled immigration bill will give him an opening to bash Republicans.
But Thursday’s theatrics only served to further thicken the partisan stew that has destroyed bipartisan efforts to overhaul an overwhelmed asylum and border enforcement system since the Reagan administration. It will also show how dangerous border politics play a role.
Trump and Biden’s divisive border visits will almost certainly do little to stem the flow of desperate people fleeing economic poverty, environmental disaster, drug and gang violence, and political persecution. This trend is confronting developed countries around the world and will almost certainly worsen in the coming years. . The failure of weakened and highly polarized democracies to address immigration is ironically a problem that demagogues like Trump and European populists can exploit to further weaken democracies. creating conditions.
The Biden campaign is taking a risk in showing the president at the border, the president’s most obvious symbol of political weakness. And while the visit had been planned for earlier this week, it came on the heels of Michigan’s nominating contest on Tuesday night. At this time, the strength of the “uncommitted” vote in the Democratic primary revealed some of the fragility of Biden’s support base. Arab-American and progressive voters are outraged by his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
But Biden’s border visit repairs weaknesses in his electoral coalition in recent weeks, where he has courted Black Americans and unionized workers and aggressively confronted Trump. This is a step towards embodying a more aggressive election strategy aimed at achieving this goal. The offensive will culminate next week with the president’s annual State of the Union address, a key symbolic pillar of his re-election bid, in front of a huge television audience, in which he will deliver an end to the border crisis and an end to the border crisis. It is expected that he will reprimand Republican lawmakers who have failed to take action. To alleviate some of his vulnerability on this issue.
His disrespectful behavior appears to have irritated President Trump, who is accustomed to dominating political maneuvering over immigration issues. “He went three years without going to the border,” President Trump told Voice of Real America on Tuesday. Trump said, “Because I’m going to be out of office, he’s going to be out of office now,” and accused the president of being a “chaser.” Biden, who seems to enjoy poking fun at his rivals, told reporters on Monday: “I had plans for Thursday, but what I didn’t know was that my best friend was apparently going to be there.” Ta.
All kidding aside, the president needs to address his glaring weakness on immigration. A CNN poll earlier this month found that only 30% of Americans approve of his performance on the issue, and 79% of voters, including majorities across party lines, say the border situation represents a crisis. ing. It’s true that conservative media and politicians have spent years trolling the president with overhyped and misleading reporting about invading migrant caravans and opening borders. But it is also true that the high level of interference with border crossers is deeply concerning to many voters. Republican governors like Mr. Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appear to have succeeded in nationalizing the problem by moving illegal immigrants away from the border and into Democratic jurisdictions and cities.
Immigration is a particularly thorny issue for the president. That’s because any attempt by the president to take a tougher stance, or even hint at the possibility of closing the border, risks further alienating support from progressives, some of whom are already reluctant to take office. For some progressives, the vote in November will be important.
But White House and Biden campaign officials see this as a unique opportunity for Biden to criticize Republicans on border security.
Many voters understood that border security policies that could have improved conditions at the U.S. southern border were within reach, but were undermined by Republicans seeking to curry favor with President Trump. I hope you will.
“The problem is trying to solve problems, and Republicans don’t want to do that. American voters will see that,” Biden campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond told CNN. “We have a former president who said, ‘Let’s leave this issue as an issue. It might help us win elections.'”
One senior Biden campaign official said that if many Democrats in recent years have tried to avoid talking about immigration, inaction from Republicans now presents a new opportunity for sharp divisions. said.
“President Trump’s withdrawal from the deal is an opportunity for Democrats and Biden to talk about who will actually implement the solution,” the official said.
Biden administration officials have argued, with some validity, that the Trump administration left the immigration system a disaster. For example, former presidential officials had to spend months tracking down children separated from their parents as part of a strict effort to stop families from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. But some of Biden’s comments during the 2020 campaign were interpreted as encouraging more undocumented immigrants to seek asylum in a system already plagued by a years-long backlog of cases. . Republicans also capitalized on his rejection of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which would mean asylum seekers must remain on the other side of the border until their claims are processed. And Biden’s decision to immediately reverse several of President Trump’s immigration policies presents an opportunity for Republicans. The climax of the Republican attack on immigration was the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but the Democratic majority in the Senate means he could be removed from office after the trial. is low.
Biden has been given a lifeline by the Republican Party as he tries to quell Republican attacks. The House’s refusal to even vote on the Senate’s border compromise, despite years of calls from party officials for more spending on enforcement and asylum policy changes, is a sign that the country is trying to keep the crisis going. It was seen as President Trump’s attempt to put his own interests ahead of profits. I’ll live until the election. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson remains tied in a hypocritical bond over the issue. On Tuesday, the president said at the White House that despite helping to block the most conservative immigration policy in years, “we have to meet America’s needs first,” including the latest $60 billion package for Ukraine. He justified his reluctance to vote on lifelines.
Trump pioneered shocking and often racist rhetoric against immigrants at the beginning of his 2015 campaign. In retrospect, this was the moment when Trump reacted to his loss in the White House in 2012 by deciding to become a minority electorate on the court and beginning a transformation of his party. . President Trump, who seeks to retake the White House and faces four criminal trials despite his ignominious exit from Washington, D.C., after trying to steal the election in 2021, is ramping up pressure on immigrants. ing.
“They’re coming from Asia, they’re coming from the Middle East, they’re coming from all over the world, they’re coming from Africa, and we’re not going to stand for that. … They’re destroying our country,” Trump said over the weekend. Speaking at the Conservative Party Political Action Conference. He went on to complain, “They are killing our people. They are killing our country. We have no choice.” They’re coming… They have a language that no one in this country has ever heard. It’s scary.”
The former president’s comments and his vow to launch the largest deportation operation in U.S. history suggest that his chances for a second term will be reduced to the rule of law and democracy that his violent first administration ushered in. This is one of a growing body of evidence that suggests it poses an even bigger challenge. Around the Oval Office.
While in Texas, President Trump is expected to meet with members of the National Guard and tour Shelby Park on the Rio Grande, which Texas has blocked federal border agents from entering. A Trump adviser said the former president would lean toward recent “shocking stories,” such as the murder of Augusta University nursing student Laken Hope Riley, which was allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant. Trump will also be interviewed by Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Thursday’s exchange may have concrete political implications ahead of what is expected to be a rematch of the general election, but it will almost certainly do nothing to resolve the real crisis in the immigration system. right.
And while it will take a major international initiative to address the root causes of the migration crisis: broken public order, corruption, and poor governance in developing countries in the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. government will solve the problem. In the same way, a broken global political consensus cannot do the trick. Domestic immigration confusion.
CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
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