AUSTIN (Nexstar) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will both be in Texas this Thursday as the U.S.-Mexico border has become the epicenter of the political rift over immigration ahead of the March 5 primary elections.
Biden will visit Brownsville to meet with Border Patrol officials and local law enforcement, marking his second trip to the border as President. His first trip was a brief tour of Border Patrol facilities in El Paso last January.
More than 300 miles away, Donald Trump will rally in Eagle Pass– the small border town that once was the center of record migrant encounters and has been the center of Gov. Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star.”
“While the President addresses bipartisan border security funding solutions with local officials, Border Patrol and law enforcement – Donald Trump will visit Greg Abbott’s movie set and boast about how he killed the toughest and fairest border security bill in decades,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said Monday. “It’s a stark contrast: Biden is working to tackle border issues head on while Trump indulges in self-promotion as usual.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is accusing Biden of “chasing” Trump to the border, as the former president’s Eagle Pass trip was planned before the White House announced their trip to Brownsville.
“Crooked Joe Biden has had three years to visit the border and fix the crisis he created. Now Biden’s handlers are sending him there on the same day as President Trump’s publicly reported trip,” Trump Campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Biden’s last-minute, insincere attempt to chase President Trump to the border won’t cut it.”
The competing trips highlight the gravity of border security and immigration policy for the 2024 campaigns. Recent polling shows only 30% of Texans approve of Biden’s handling of the border, while 59% support making it harder for migrants who say they are fleeing violence to seek asylum.
Nexstar is working to confirm further details of each event and will update this coverage with the latest.
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