When President Biden and former President Trump take the stage in Atlanta on Thursday, the immigration and humanitarian crisis at the southern border will almost certainly be a flashpoint.
Many polls show that voters believe Trump is best positioned to solve the problem, and he has continually criticized Biden because of this. He blamed his successor’s policies for the crisis and filled his social media feeds with missives about crimes allegedly committed by immigrants, referring to them as “Biden’s migrant murders.” He has promised to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without legal authorization.
Trump referred to migrants as “animals” and even suggested that they should be transformed into mixed martial arts fighters.
“I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea for you to make a lot of money. You’re going to start a new league fighting migrants, just migrants,’” Trump said before an evangelical Christian conference in Washington, D.C., last weekend, referring to Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Such comments scored points for Trump with his base and beyond.
Biden faces a more complicated challenge, allies and advisers say, and needs to hone a subtle message Thursday night that emphasizes balancing the need for border security and humanity for immigrants who have already entered this country.
See more information: What Biden’s California border looks like as voter concerns about immigration grow
“I don’t think it’s one or the other, and I don’t think the American public thinks it’s one or the other,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told The Times this week. “We can and should do both.”
He said Thursday night’s debate will exemplify how “Joe Biden speaks to the American people. Donald Trump speaks to his base.”
Matt A. Barreto, a pollster for the Biden campaign, said an April poll he oversaw found that two-thirds of respondents in key battleground states want “a balanced approach to the immigration system and report high levels of support for policies that address both border and route security.” to citizenship.”
“This is what the president is pushing for and the polling data suggests this is what the American public wants,” Barreto told The Times. “They want to see a well-managed and orderly border and they also have enormous empathy for long-term undocumented immigrants and want to see them brought out of the shadows.”
Biden recently took two steps that reflect this balancing act, imposing limits on asylum seekers and opening a path to citizenship for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
For the third consecutive month, respondents from a April Gallup Poll cited immigration as the most important problem facing the United States. A The Washington Post-Schar School of Politics and Government’s recent poll of voters in swing states found that only 42% of respondents said immigrants who are in the country illegally should be deported. Almost 60% said they should have the opportunity to apply for legal status.
Still, Trump’s handling of immigration is preferable to Biden’s, 52% to 26%, according to the same poll.
During the debate, Trump is likely to bring up serious crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants.
In one case, two Venezuelan men who entered the U.S. illegally earlier this year were charged in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl in Houston. “We have a new Biden migrant murder – it’s only going to get worse and it’s all corrupt Joe Biden’s fault,” Trump said on Truth Social.
But immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US, studies show. The Times reported earlier this year that Trump was fundraising with Thomas Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who helped implement the widely derided family separation policy.
In response, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “Biden’s reversal of President Trump’s immigration policies has created an unprecedented illegal immigration, humanitarian and national security crisis at our southern border.”
Leavitt said that if Trump returns to the Oval Office, “he will restore all of his previous policies, implement new crackdowns that will send shockwaves through every criminal smuggler in the world, and marshal all the federal and state powers necessary to institute the largest deportation.” operation in American history.
See more information: Races in California have been roiled by the border and immigration. Could overthrow control of the House
In recent weeks, Trump has appeared modular, saying on a podcast that immigrants who graduate from American colleges should get a green card. Comments requested fierce resistance of its allies.
His spokesperson then clarified that not all graduates would receive green cards, saying this would “apply only to the most carefully vetted college graduates, which would never lower wages or American workers.”
Earlier this year, House Republicans heeded Trump’s demands and rejected a bipartisan border security bill after months of negotiations in the Senate. The negotiations also exposed divisions among Democrats and reflected the two notes Biden will need to hit on Thursday: how to speak to voters who think the southern border is too porous while also emphasizing the contributions of immigrants who are already there. in the country.
“Every American should know that Trump proudly killed the strongest bipartisan border bill in a generation – siding with fentanyl traffickers over the Border Patrol and our security,” said campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, suggesting an avenue of attack that Biden could use on Thursday.
Padilla opposed the winter compromise because it did not include reforms to help farmworkers and undocumented immigrants already in the country. At the time, Biden said he would have signed the deal, but it never reached his desk, largely because of Trump’s opposition.
While he didn’t like the deal, Padilla said Biden has done a good job through executive orders and public statements aimed at both securing the southern border and helping people already here. Padilla pointed to a recent executive order that protect immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens who have lived consecutively in the country for at least a decade. The measure allows up to 500,000 of these immigrants to quickly access a path to American citizenship.
Unlike Padilla, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) supported the Senate compromise deal. The former Phoenix mayor called it a good start, one that immediately addressed his constituents’ frustrations and would have “reestablished operational control” of the border. Stanton traveled frequently to border stations and ports of entry — often with Republicans — and said what he witnessed is untenable.
See more information: Tired and confused, first migrants arrive at California border after Biden asylum order
Earlier this month, the Biden administration raised the legal standard for asylum applications and restricted access to asylum for those crossing the border illegally when the average number of arrests is more than 2,500 per day, as has been common.
The move is difficult without additional funding, which the border law would have provided, administration officials point out. Mexico agreed to accept migrants from some other countries, such as Venezuela and Cuba, allowing some to be quickly removed from the United States. But authorities cannot count on consistent cooperation from other countries, such as China, to welcome back their citizens.
Still, after a record number of arrests late last year, the Border Patrol said preliminary data since Biden’s announcement showed that arrests had fell 25%.
May figures show arrests fell to the third-lowest of any month during his presidency.
Customs and Border Protection reported that agents have recovered 895 remains of migrants in fiscal year 2022, three times as many as were discovered in 2018. Advocates say the number is a vast underestimation.
Stanton said the debate is a moment where Biden can point to those achievements and expose how Republican intransigence has torpedoed any efforts to achieve more lasting solutions. Stanton was at the signing ceremony for Biden’s executive order, where he highlighted the work of a previously undocumented nurse who helped COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. The nurse benefited Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“Biden understands the fundamentals of saying you need strong border security and appropriate immigration, smart immigration reform,” Stanton said. “These always went together.”
Times writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
