Biden, Trump trade jabs over plan to halt migrant surge
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Joe Biden and Donald Trump traded verbal jabs on Saturday over a bipartisan plan for border reform aimed at stemming a surge in migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico.
With immigration one of the hottest electoral issues in what increasingly looks like a Trump-Biden rematch for the White House this year, the fate of the bill being negotiated by the Senate has become a high-stakes battleground.
Republican primary front-runner Trump has put immigration front and center in his campaign, issuing dire warnings about the porous nature of the border — yet has simultaneously pushed back hard against a deal, even as Biden tacks right and promises to temporarily “shut down” the border.
Biden threw his weight behind the proposed bill on Saturday, insisting it would usher in the “toughest”-ever set of border reforms.
“It would give me as president the emergency authority to shut down the border until it can get back under control,” Biden said in a speech in South Carolina. “If that bill was law today I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.”
Trump has instead continued to castigate Biden over “open borders” as an influx of migrants roils domestic politics. “The border is in play (politically) like it’s never been in play before,” he said at a campaign speech in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Following Trump’s extensive lobbying, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, said in an open letter on Friday that any such bill adopted by the Senate would be “dead in the water” and never get passed by the House.
“They’re blaming it on me, I said, ‘That’s OK, blame it on me, please,’” Trump said on Saturday. “I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.”
The historic number of migrants arriving at the US border with Mexico during Biden’s term is one of the main challenges of his reelection campaign.
Immigration was a top issue during Iowa’s Republican caucuses earlier this month when Trump won. An AP VoteCast survey found about 9 in 10 caucusgoers backed building a wall along the US-Mexico border, with about 7 in 10 expressing strong support for the idea.
As Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the federal government engage in a standoff over control over the border, Trump said he would give the state his “full support” and “deploy all necessary military and law enforcement resources to seal up the final section of border”.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton said on Thursday that Biden’s administration had been working in “good faith” with
Republicans to reach a deal and hoped they would “remain at the table so we can do that”.
The US Supreme Court last week agreed to temporarily let US Border Patrol agents cut or remove razorwire fencing that Texas officials placed along part of the state’s border with Mexico to deter illegal border crossings.