EAGLE PASS, TEXAS — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traveled to the southern border on Thursday to cast blame on each other for the immigration crisis.
Immigration has steadily picked up steam as a top concern for voters ahead of the 2024 election, especially in states in the South and the Southwest, and though both Biden and Trump surveyed sections of border wall and delivered speeches, they took pointedly different approaches in making their case to voters.
Biden traveled to Brownsville, Texas, a relatively slow-flow section along the border, on Thursday. He opened his remarks by addressing the recent Texas wildfires and vowing to continue fighting climate change before methodically laying out the case for a modest immigration reform proposal brokered by a bipartisan group of senators.
The measure failed to pass the Senate and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared it dead following significant public posturing on the proposal from Trump.
Biden Thursday pressed Johnson and his Republican friends in Congress to “show a little spine” and pass the bipartisan legislation.
The president also offered an olive branch, so to speak, to his likely general election opponent.
“I understand my predecessor was in Eagle Pass today. So here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with the 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,” Biden said. “We can do it together. You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done?”
Trump, on the other hand, traveled to Eagle Pass, widely recognized as one of the busiest border sectors in terms of immigrant encounters, to launch direct shots at Biden. After visiting and embracing members of the Texas National Guard deployed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) to inhibit illegal immigrant crossings, the former president personally blamed his successor for the crisis at the border and violent crimes committed against U.S. citizens by illegal immigrants, including the recent kidnapping and murder of former University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
“You saw what happened the other day in Georgia, and the parents are devastated,” Trump said just minutes into his remarks. “But this is a Joe Biden invasion. This is a Biden invasion over the past three years.”
“Last year, a sadistic illegal alien criminal was released into our country by Joe Biden. He was arrested for raping an 11-year-old girl and strangling her to death in Pasadena, Texas,” he continued. “Horrible ‘Crooked Joe’ has the blood of countless innocent victims. It’s so many stories to tell, so many horrible stories. Three years ago, we had the most secure border in history.”
The White House announced Biden’s trip to the border days after Trump’s visit was scheduled, but Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rejected the idea Thursday that the president’s event was a political move aimed at countering Trump on immigration.
Still, it seems that, at least in Eagle Pass, voters don’t buy the administration’s attempts to juggle the sensibilities of immigration activists within Biden’s Democratic base with the difficulties of advancing bipartisan legislation aimed at addressing one of the most sensitive topics in American politics.
Several people hanging around the outskirts of Trump’s event told the Washington Examiner that they prefer Trump’s blunt approach to securing the border, including several people who came to the country through legal pathways and are frustrated with immigrants flouting the system.
Onesimo Elizondo, an insurance agent in Eagle Pass, and his wife, Maria, were both born in Mexico and legally immigrated to the United States decades ago.
“It’s been crazy with the immigrants. We have two ranches, and they both are — we don’t even go because the traffic from the immigrants are crazy. All the fences from the immigrants are down,” Elizondo said in an interview. “It’s been hard with a lot of issues and our homes.”
Elizondo’s wife claimed the family doesn’t “go outside as much once it gets dark,” as crime in Eagle Pass has risen following the influx of immigrants.
Elizondo added that even the increase in law enforcement agents attempting to police the area is draining the community.
He told the Washington Examiner that his church is building a retreat center near the border but has not been able to obtain permits for water because of how much is being consumed by a massive Border Patrol processing facility outside town. At the height of the crisis, which has ebbed and flowed in Eagle Pass for three years, more than 4,000 immigrants were detained at the processing facility here, far beyond its 1,000-person capacity.
“They’re taking the water from all the citizens there. If you try to get a water meter, you can’t get one because all the water is going to [the Border Patrol facility],” Elizondo explained.
Dora Noble, a Honduran-born lawyer married to a Border Patrol agent in Eagle Pass, told the Washington Examiner that she planned to vote for Trump in 2024. It will be the first time Noble will have voted in a general election.
“I like him,” she said of Trump.
“I [am] proud of this country as my second. I love [the] United States, love United States, and Honduras, too, because I [was] born in Honduras. It’s my second place. And love this place. United States, I defend [the] United States,” she added.
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And it wasn’t just Eagle Pass residents on hand for Trump’s visit. Gino Garafolo, a chef from Miami, drove 22 hours to watch Trump’s border event and told the Washington Examiner that he believes Trump “can certainly improve the situation.”
“I know that he’s here to support us and our border policies. I hope that he gets reelected and that he can fix the crisis going on right now,” Garafolo said. “We support everything that he wants to happen.”
