EAGLE PASS, Texas — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will both descend on the southern border Thursday in a historic showdown as each politician vies for the upper hand on voters’ top issue: immigration.
Biden will touch down in the southeastern tip of Texas in Brownsville, while Trump, his likely Republican challenger for president, will visit the south-central region’s Eagle Pass.
Immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has become a humanitarian crisis as thousands of illegal crossings overwhelm border agents each day. But it has also become politically toxic for Biden, whose approval ratings are weighed down by Republican claims that he is presiding over an open border. Trump’s visit is intended as counterprogramming to the president.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), a Republican congressman whose district makes up the largest chunk of the 2,000-mile southern border, chided Biden for going to a spot where arrests are very low.
“While Joe Biden checks the box in quiet Brownsville tomorrow, President Trump will be visiting the eye of the storm in Eagle Pass, Texas,” Gonzales told the Washington Examiner Wednesday evening. “Joe Biden couldn’t try harder to hide from this border crisis, while House Republicans continue to make it our top priority. The American people deserve to once again feel safe in their own communities.”
Meanwhile, Democrats engaged in their own political posturing ahead of the visit. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), a member of the Biden-Harris 2024 National Advisory Board, told reporters in a call Wednesday afternoon that Democrats expect Trump to put on display an “even more extreme” version of himself and his policies while at the border.
“Now, Donald Trump, this 2.0 version of him, is even more extreme, more racist, more anti-American, more anti-immigrant, and of course we know would make our challenges much worse,” Garcia said. “He has proposed truly insane ideas along the border while proposing nothing to actually fix our immigration system.”
The border visit has created a split screen between the two leading contenders for president, but a spokeswoman for the only other GOP presidential challenger, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, also used it as an opportunity to criticize both leaders over the frequency of their visits.
Trump traveled to south Texas in November to bash Biden over his record on immigration, while Thursday’s visit will be Biden’s second trip to the border as president.
“Ten months after Nikki Haley became the first declared presidential candidate to visit the southern border, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are finally going to see the crisis they both created and exacerbated,” said Haley communications director Nachama Soloveichik in a statement Wednesday. “As Trump tours Eagle Pass and Biden stops in Brownsville, the Haley campaign has a message for them: if you want something done, ask a woman.”
Soloveichik said Biden had rolled out a “welcome mat” for illegal immigrants, while Trump’s opposition to a bipartisan border deal in the Senate led Republicans to “do nothing about it” in an election year.
Biden will descend on Brownsville, Texas, around 1:30 p.m. local time Thursday. He is expected to meet with Border Patrol agents, local leaders, and other law enforcement, according to a White House official.
“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,” the official said in a statement. “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.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will join Biden, the department said Wednesday evening.
The Trump campaign has not disclosed what to expect from his visit to Eagle Pass, a border town that is about a five-hour drive from Brownsville.
Two local law enforcement officials told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that Trump is expected to fly into nearby border town Del Rio, Texas, then travel by car to Eagle Pass, where he will visit Shelby Park. The park was taken over by Texas state police and military in January as Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) locked out federal Border Patrol agents whom he viewed as not doing enough to turn away illegal immigrants.
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Federico Garza, police chief of Eagle Pass, told the Washington Examiner that he was tired of politicians and cameras coming down only to see little change as immigrants cross into his town by the hundreds, even thousands, daily.
“All of these people coming to Eagle Pass, the border — the solution is in Washington. Enough of the visiting and the theatrics,” Garza said.