Americans are angry about the border. Here's how it looks on the campaign trail

An eye-popping survey this week helps explain the competing appearances Thursday at the MexicoU.S. border by the past and present presidents of the United States.

For the first time in its years of polling on the topic, Monmouth University found a majority of Americans sup‐ porting Donald Trump's sig‐ nature policy: A border wall with Mexico.

It's not just Republicans complaining about migration anymore. A clear majority of voters, including swing voters, told the pollster they consider illegal immigration a very serious problem.

That's amid a surge of mil‐ lions of migrants - not to mention the surge of news headlines about violent acts a small number of them are accused of committing.

Thursday offered a pre‐ view of how the presidential candidates will handle the is‐ sue. Trump was on the at‐ tack; Joe Biden defended his record, then tried countering.

Trump's attack line: Blam‐ ing Biden for the migration wave, because the president relaxed several previous bor‐ der policies, especially in his first year in office.

Biden's retort: Some of those former policies were either immoral, intolerant or impossible to apply perma‐ nently. In his telling, he's try‐ ing to enact sustainable solu‐ tions and being blocked by Trump's Republicans.

"This has become a criti‐ cal issue," said Patrick Mur‐ ray, director of the polling in‐ stitute at Monmouth Univer‐ sity. "It has now consumed our political dialogue."

He said the current ad‐ ministration gets its lowest marks from voters on this than on any other issue: "Biden has to do something about it."

Migration frustration: 'This is a big deal'

Another polling analyst said it requires little time in the U.S. to grasp why immigra‐ tion is now seen even by swing voters as one of the top three most urgent issues in the country.

"All you have to do is turn on your television around the country," said Tim Malloy, polling analyst at Quinnipiac University.

"Pick your network: There are people at the border, there are people sleeping on the streets of New York, there are people staying in hotels that cities are putting them in. And there's a sense that there's a never-ending flow.

"This is a big deal. "

That's the politics of it.

And it's one reason, among several, why Biden is now trailing in the vast majority of national and swing-state pol‐ ls.

The candidates also talked policy during their competing visits to Texas.

Trump listed some of his first-term moves and promised even more aggres‐ sive ones if he wins a second term.

Those promises include mass deportations; finishing the wall; using the U.S. mili‐ tary against Mexican drug cartels; and a (likely unconsti‐ tutional) refusal to grant U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrants.

Trump found a supportive Border Patrol union. The union leader accompanied Trump on his visit, not Biden. While addressing Trump, Brandon Judd referred twice to his union members as "your agents."

As is his custom, Trump also deviated into unrelated trash-talk. For example, he twice referred to the gover‐ nor of California, Gavin New‐ som, as Governor "News‐ cum."

Repeated references to violent crime

Trump went on at length about a shocking murder.

He described a phone call he had with the parents of a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, whose head was bashed in during a jog last month.

"She was brutally beaten. Kidnapped and savagely murdered," Trump said. "Joe Biden will never say Laken Ri‐ ley's name. But we will say it."

Crime is actually down this year in most of the U.S., Democrats will point out; this includes a drop in crime in the cities receiving the most migrants.

They will struggle to make that message heard. A con‐ certed chorus from their op‐ ponents is drawing attention to these violent crimes.

On Wednesday alone, Re‐ publican lawmakers referred dozens of times, in speeches in the U.S. Congress, to vio‐ lent acts by migrants.

One Republican made a poster of people allegedly killed by undocumented mi‐ grants, placing it behind him during a speech in the House of Representatives.

Riley was one: She was al‐ legedly killed by a Venezue‐ lan-born suspect accused of entering illegally, who was then released after being ar‐ rested on an unrelated issue.

A two-year-old toddler in Maryland was recently shot to death, allegedly killed in crossfire that police say in‐ cluded an undocumented mi‐ grant with a reportedly long rap sheet.

A Honduran man who al‐ legedly entered the country illegally was accused of rap‐ ing a teenage girl at knife‐ point, and of a separate stab‐ bing incident.

Alleged members of a Venezuelan street gang ac‐ cused of entering the U.S. il‐ legally were also accused of attacking New York City police officers.

"How many more Laken Rileys are we going to have?" Texas Republican Beth Van Duyne said during a news conference Thursday.

The policies: Democrats versus Republicans

The Democratic response? Trump is peddling a simplis‐ tic fantasy, amplified by the reality-distorting echo cham‐ ber at Fox News.

The truth is Trump never stopped irregular migration. Millions also crossed illegally while he was president. Then a pandemic happened, poverty got worse and migra‐ tion spiked afterward.

They insist real solutions require real - and new - re‐ sources. Biden points out that Republicans just blocked a bill that would have deliv‐ ered some.

"It's time to step up," Biden said in Brownsville, Texas. "[That bill] was de‐ railed by rank partisan politics.… Instead of playing politics with the issue, let's get together and get it done."

The migration system is currently gummed up with logistical shortfalls. Migrants can cross into the U.S. illegal‐ ly, declare asylum and then have their cases drag on for years.

In the meantime, most are freed. There aren't enough courts and judges to process cases quickly. And there aren't enough facilities and beds to detain everyone indefinitely.

Nor are there enough fed‐ eral planes to deport every‐ one. There aren't enough countries willing to accept all these deportations, including Venezuela.

The now-blocked bill in‐ cluded over $10 billion to hire new border agents and immigration judges, and buy new equipment to help with detention and deportation.

Republicans insist the president already has tools he can use. Like executive ac‐ tion to immediately refuse people asylum, which Biden is reportedly considering doing.

But where would every‐ one be deported to?

When the Republican speaker of the House of Rep‐ resentatives was asked what he'd do if Mexico refuses to accept everyone, Mike John‐ son urged Biden to play hardball.

"Mr. President, we're the United States. Mexico will do what we say," Johnson replied.

Republicans also point out, correctly, that they have acted. The House passed a far stricter bill that would vir‐ tually halt asylum, and make it easier to deport unaccom‐ panied children.

The Democratic-led Sen‐ ate won't touch the Republi‐ can House bill. Republicans in the House and Senate, meanwhile, killed the abovementioned bill, which had been negotiated for months between the parties.

American voters will be asked to make sense of all this, and render their verdict in November.