Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border shortly after she and President Biden took office, despite having described such visits as empty politics just weeks earlier. President Barack Obama also toured the border during his time in the White House, although he viewed the trips as little more than photo ops.
Donald J. Trump used the border when he was president to mobilize support for his anti-immigration policies, even signing his name with a Sharpie pen on his “big, beautiful wall.”
As the immigration debate becomes increasingly polarized, a trip along the 2,000-mile border has become a mandatory part of political theater for leaders who want to show they care about immigration. The images at the border – the wall, the border guards, the overcrowded detention centers – serve as an effective backdrop to draw attention to the crisis or, increasingly, to take up the issue to attack political opponents.
On Thursday, both factors will come into play when President Biden and Mr. Trump make dueling trips to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. Trump will travel to Eagle Pass, Texas, where he will speak about crimes committed by migrants and blame Mr. Biden for the increase in border crossings. Mr. Biden, more than 300 miles away in Brownsville, plans to speak to border officials and call out House Republicans who took a cue from Mr. Trump and defeated a bipartisan border bill that would have cracked down on illegal migration.
“It’s a relatively new phenomenon where people are making a lot of meaning out of the border at the border,” said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian. “As long as this remains a problem, we will have presidents who either leave to make a political argument or, if they don’t leave, are pressured to do so.”
Immigration has become one of Mr. Biden’s biggest political liabilities as millions of migrants overwhelm the underfunded and underfunded system, something Republicans like Mr. Trump are keen to highlight. A Gallup poll released Tuesday found that Americans are most likely to say immigration is the country’s biggest problem.
“This is a Hail Mary from Biden,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the main border guard union. Mr. Judd, a long-time supporter of Mr. Trump, will join the former president in Eagle Pass on Thursday. Still, he said, he was in favor of the border law in Congress, which Mr. Biden supported and Mr. Trump opposed.
Immigration is at the heart of Mr. Trump’s presidential bid, and many Republicans, particularly in the House of Representatives, would be reluctant to concede a victory to Mr. Biden on an issue that has earned them intense criticism of the White House.
Border politics were not always so divisive. In 1971, Pat Nixon, then the first lady, made headlines when she greeted Mexican children and complained about fences while visiting a park along the border in San Diego.
Decades later, President George W. Bush traveled to a Border Patrol post in New Mexico to drum up support for his attempt to overhaul the country’s immigration policies. While the Senate at the time supported a bill that would provide a path to eventual citizenship for many illegal immigrants, the House of Representatives emphasized the need for border security.
Mr. Obama faced greater divisions. In 2011, he gave a speech in El Paso, within sight of the border, in which he advocated for legalization legislation – a nod to Latino voters who would be crucial in the 2012 election. But in 2014, when record numbers of unaccompanied minors crossed the border, Obama faced incessant calls to visit the border, which he rebuffed.
“I’m not interested in photo ops,” Obama said.
Mr. Trump was. He visited the border several times during his presidency and might have gone there more often if not for the pandemic.
Almost as soon as Mr. Biden took office, he and Ms. Harris faced demands from Republicans who said they should visit the border and see the crisis for themselves. Both made the trip to El Paso; Ms. Harris in June 2021 and Mr. Biden in January 2023.
Both were also criticized. Republicans took Ms. Harris to task for traveling to El Paso instead of the lower Rio Grande Valley, considered the epicenter of the migration surge. Progressive Democrats said Mr. Biden should have spoken directly to migrants.
Gil Kerlikowske, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner during the Obama administration, said presidents and other top officials can show they are prioritizing the border by visiting. But he also acknowledged that such visits could potentially serve political gain.
“It’s so politically sensitive right now,” said Kerlikowske. “When you come and look at the work and the difficulties that Customs and Border Protection in particular are facing at the border, it shows that this will be, if not No. 1, then certainly one or two of the issues of this presidential election cycle .” ”
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2024-02-28 10:06:56
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