WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and his Republican rival former President Donald Trump will visit the Mexico border on same day, Western media reported on Monday.
White House said that Biden will visit Brownsville, in Texas on Thursday to meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders.
White House official said that the president is expected to discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security arrangement, the toughest set of reforms to secure the border with Mexico.
The official went on to say that Biden will reaffirm his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop doing politics on the matter and to provide the funding required for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers and detection technology.
Meanwhile, his rival Trump will also travel to Eagle Pass in Texas on the same day.
Trump’s campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Crooked Joe Biden has had three years to visit the border and fix the crisis he created.”
She said that Biden’s handlers are sending him to the Mexico border on the same day as Donald Trump publicly reported his tour, not because they actually want to solve the issue, but because they know that Biden is losing terribly in the upcoming presidential election.
She said that Biden at the last-minute, is trying to chase Trump to the border. Leavitt criticized the US president for the worst immigration crisis in the US history.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre did not comment on the statement of Trump’s officials.
For Trump, a strict anti-immigration position has been key to his political identity for years, and he has repeatedly vowed to crack down on crossings from Mexico as he seeks to become president again.
Republicans accuse Biden’s policies of favoring the right to asylum for migrants’ inflow, while the White House says that Trump’s party is intentionally sabotaging a bipartisan attempt to find a solution to the issue.
