Biden is traveling to Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley — while Trump is set to give remarks roughly 300 miles away, along the border in Eagle Pass.
The 2024 presidential hopefuls are squaring off as tension over border security and immigration intensifies, both seeking to spin the issues to their advantage in the White House race.
Recent polling has shown immigration surge to overtake inflation as the top voter concern heading into 2024 — and a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shared with The Hill showed more than 4 in 10 voters think allowing the influx of migrants that have come across the border has been Biden’s biggest failure.
Thursday marks Biden’s second trip to the border as president, after he traveled to El Paso last January amid GOP pressure over migrant crossings.
He’s set to meet in Brownsville with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement officials, frontline personnel and local leaders, according to the White House. Biden’s scheduled for remarks to urge Congress to approve a bipartisan border security agreement.
Trump opposed the bill, calling it a “Death Wish” for the GOP, but the White House has continued to press for it to move forward.
If Trump “actually cared” about border security, “he would not have stepped in and blown up the deal. But the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about border security,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden campaign, said during a recent press call.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is planning to attack Trump’s immigration record with a mobile billboard in Eagle Pass.
Trump is also slated to meet with border agents and law enforcement about what a campaign spokesperson called “the crime scene at Biden’s open border” Thursday.
The former president will give remarks outlining his plan to “secure the border immediately upon taking office,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said.
Both Biden and Trump have dominated their respective party primaries so far, and the stage seems set for a rematch of their 2020 contest in the general election.
The split-screen southern border visits from the 2024 frontrunners come less than a week before dozens of states hold primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday, as border security and immigration continue to play a major role for voters across the country.
Read more about the dueling trips from The Hill’s Brett Samuels here.
