Joe Biden, Donald Trump to visit US-Mexico border on same day

In a high-profile scheduling conflict, Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday in an attempt to win over voters on immigration, one of the most contentious themes in the 2024 race.

In an attempt to diffuse a serious threat to his reelection campaign, Biden has pointed the finger at Congress for not supporting his changes despite record numbers of migrants entering the country.

For Trump, a hard anti-immigration stance has been central to his political identity for years, and he has repeatedly vowed to crack down on crossings from Mexico as he seeks a return to the White House.

Less than eight months before voters in the United States cast their ballots, the Joe Biden and Donald Trump will make separate stops in Texas on Thursday. This will set up a historic split-screen scene.

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After Trump’s visit was announced, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on claims made by Trump officials — claims that were unsupported by evidence — that Biden had hastily scheduled his trip.

“I don’t have a reaction to the former president, I am not going to speak to his schedule,” Jean-Pierre told the media, adding that Biden would meet with border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders in Brownsville, Texas.

“He will reiterate his calls for congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional US Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more,” she added.

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On Monday, while visiting an ice cream shop in New York, Biden also disclosed that he was not informed beforehand about the travel schedule of his probable opponent.

“I planned (the Texas trip) for Thursday, what I didn’t know was that my good friend apparently is going,” he told reporters in an apparent reference to Trump.

About 300 miles (480 kilometers) west of Brownsville, in Eagle Pass, Trump unleashed another round of anti-immigration social media tirades.

“Vicious gangs and gang members are pouring into our country from South America, and from all over the world… deposited into the Good Ole’ USA by the tens of thousands” Trump told reporters.

“Biden will never be able to handle it.”

Republicans attribute the migrant flow to Biden’s policies supporting the right to asylum, while the White House claims that Trump’s party is purposefully undermining efforts to find a solution.

The most recent bill would be “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One as Biden traveled to New York for a campaign event. The bill has stalled in the Senate after the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives threatened to sabotage it.

A recent poll indicates that under Biden, public anxiety over illegal immigration is more than it was under the previous two administrations.

According to the report, the majority of Americans now favor Trump’s signature program of building a border wall for the first time since Monmouth started asking the question in 2015.