President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump each made trips to the border on Thursday to bear witness to the ongoing migrant crisis firsthand and give remarks about managing the issues, however, both ended up getting criticized for the visits.
Biden traveled to Brownsville, for which he was criticized for choosing as his stop since the city has not been as impacted by the crisis as others, while the former president made his stop roughly 300 miles away in Eagle Pass, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
During his remarks, Biden urged lawmakers to pass a border bill purportedly meant to help manage the crisis caused by the surge in unlawful crossings.
“It’s time for the speaker and some of my Republican friends in Congress who are blocking this bill to show a little spine,” he said, per CNN.
Biden claimed that Republican members of the Senate were too wrapped up in “partisan politics” and must compromise to pass the bill.
“The U.S. Senate needs to reconsider this bill, and those senators who oppose it need to set politics aside and pass it on the merits, not on whether it’s going to benefit one party or benefit the other party,” Biden argued, according to CNN.
Biden claimed that passing the bill would require only slight compromise, however, Senate Republicans have raised concerns about the bill providing excessive amounts of taxpayer money to foreign countries while doing little to stop the flow of unlawful migrants into the United States.
If enacted, the bill Biden referenced would allocate more than $80 billion in foreign aid while providing only $20.2 billion to address the issues at the border. Additionally, the bill would essentially allow more than 1.8 million people to enter the United States unlawfully without triggering a border shutdown, as previously reported by DX.
Meanwhile, in Eagle Pass, Trump gave his remarks alongside Gov. Greg Abbott and members of the Texas National Guard. He claimed that the United States was being “overrun by the migrant crime.”
“These are the people that are coming into our country, and they’re coming from jails, and they’re coming from prisons, and they’re coming from mental institutions, and they’re coming from insane asylums, and they’re terrorists. They’re being led into our country,” he added, per The Independent.
Both Biden and Trump were criticized for their trips to the border, with the Border Patrol Union saying that the president’s trip was “too little, too late” and that he was visiting “solely to try to save himself.”
“But even if he were to put the proper policies in place at this late hour, he’d be doing it only to try to save his Presidency. And self-serving actions when time is winding down should always give Americans pause. Common sense dictates that as a lame duck, he’d revert back to his open border policies if re-elected,” the union said in a statement sent to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin.
Similarly, Eagle Pass resident Jessie Fuentes criticized Trump and Abbott for bringing attention to the city, claiming that the two were “hurting the people that need the most help.”
“Our community, if you were studying the demographics, it’s not easy being on the border. And this unwanted attention, this unwanted militarization of our community, is not welcome,” Fuentes continued, per CNN.
