BROWNSVILLE/EAGLE PASS, Texas (Reuters) -President Joe Biden and Donald Trump used rival visits to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday to heap blame on each other over migrant crossings ahead of a November election where immigration has emerged as a top issue for voters.Biden, who has been on the defensive on the matter in recent months, was in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, where he criticized Republican lawmakers for rejecting a bipartisan effort to toughen immigration policies after Trump told them not to pass it and give Biden a policy victory.
“They desperately need more resources,” Biden said after being briefed by border patrol agents and walking alongside the Rio Grande river that separates Brownsville and Mexico.
“Here’s what I would say to Mr Trump:…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 security bill,” he added, saying his proposed measures would speed up the asylum process and deter crossings.
Trump, who looks set to face Biden in what polls predict will be a close election on Nov.5, was briefed by officials with Texas Governor Greg Abbott at the river before speaking at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, where border-crossers have posed a major problem for authorities in recent months.
“This is a Biden invasion over the past three years,” Trump said, in an example of the increasingly inflammatory language he has used to describe the border issue and slam his rival’s record.
He pledged to bring back policies in place during his term in office, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required some migrants to wait in Mexico for the outcome of their U.S. immigration cases.
Several hundred Trump supporters gathered on street corners in an area overlooking Shelby Park, an area that has been commandeered to block migrants crossing illegally, carrying “Make America Great Again” and “Never Surrender” flags.
Biden took office in 2021 promising to reverse the hardline immigration policies of Trump, who was in office from 2017 to early 2021, but has since toughened his own approach.
Under pressure from Republicans who accuse him of failing to control the border, Biden called on Congress last year to provide more enforcement funding and said he would “shut down the border” if given new authority to turn back migrants.
The White House is also considering using executive authority to deny more migrants asylum at the border, a source familiar with the matter has said.
Biden was joined by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who Republican lawmakers have narrowly voted to impeach over his handling of the border, a move unlikely to succeed in the Democratic-led Senate.
“This visit is focused on the work that we do, not the rhetoric of others,” Mayorkas told reporters on Air Force One.
RISING CONCERN FOR VOTERS
A Reuters-Ipsos poll from Jan. 31 found rising concern among Americans about immigration, with 17% of respondents listing it as the most important problem facing the U.S. today, up sharply from 11% in December.
It was the top concern of Republican respondents, with 36% citing it as their main worry, above the 29% who cited the economy.
Some Democrats told Reuters they were turning toward Trump in Maverick County near the border, a rare Democratic stronghold in the majority Republican state of Texas.
“I don’t like what’s happening in our borders,” said Asalia Casares, 52, a lifelong Democrat, who said she would probably vote for Trump in November.
Trump was joined on his visit by Abbott, a Republican whose administration has been building a military “base camp” at Eagle Pass to deter migrants.
Eagle Pass remains a flashpoint in a heated partisan debate over border security even though the number of migrants caught crossing illegally into both there and Brownsville dropped sharply in January and February.
The number of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally hit a monthly record of 250,000 in December but dropped by half in January, a trend U.S. officials attribute to increased Mexican enforcement and seasonal trends.
A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked the state’s new law giving officials broad powers to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people who illegally cross the border.
Abbott has deployed thousands of National Guard troops and laid concertina wire and river buoys to deter illegal immigration through a program called Operation Lone Star.
“All Joe Biden had to do to secure the border was to keep in place, what President Trump put in place in the first place,” said Abbott, urging Biden to enforce existing laws.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Richard Cowan and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Steve Holland and Costas Pitas; Editing by Mary Milliken, Mica Rosenberg, Chizu Nomiyama and Deepa Babington)
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