The immigration and humanitarian crisis at the southern border will almost certainly be a flashpoint when President Joe Biden and former President Trump take the stage in Atlanta on Thursday.
Many polls show that voters believe Trump is best able to solve the problem, and he has repeatedly attacked Biden. He blamed the crisis on his successor’s policies and posted a flood of letters on social media about immigrants’ alleged crimes, calling it the “Biden immigration massacre.” He has vowed to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without legal authorization.
Trump has called immigrants “animals” and even suggested turning them into mixed martial arts fighters.
“I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea that will make you a lot of money. You’re going to start a new immigration fighting league, just immigrants,'” Trump told an evangelical Christian conference in Washington, D.C., over the weekend. He was referring to Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White.
Those comments won Trump support from his supporters and others.
Allies and advisers said Biden faces a thornier challenge of delivering a nuanced message Thursday night that emphasizes balancing the need for border security with the humanity of migrants already entering the country.
“I don’t think it’s an either/or question, and I don’t think the American public thinks it’s an either/or question,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told this week The Times. “We can and should do both.”
He said Thursday night’s debate will show “how Joe Biden speaks to the American people.” Donald Trump speaks to his supporters.
Matt A. Barreto, a Biden campaign pollster, said an April poll he oversaw found that two-thirds of respondents in key battleground states wanted “a balanced approach to the immigration system and expressed support for addressing border security and roads.” The policy in question has high levels of support for citizenship. ”
“This is what the president is pushing for, and the polling data shows this is what the American public wants,” Barreto told The Times. “They want to see a well-managed, orderly border, and they have a lot of empathy for long-term undocumented immigrants and want to see them come out of the shadows.”
Two recent measures by Biden reflect this balancing act: imposing restrictions on asylum seekers and clearing a path to citizenship for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
For the third month in a row, respondents to an April Gallup poll ranked immigration as the most important issue facing the United States. A recent poll of swing state voters by The Washington Post’s Schaer School of Policy and Government found that only 42% of respondents said immigrants who are in the country illegally should be deported. Nearly 60% said they should have the opportunity to apply for legal status.
Still, Trump still handles immigration better than Biden, 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 United States illegally earlier this year have been charged in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl in Houston. “We’ve got a new Biden massacre of immigrants — it’s only going to get worse, and it’s all Crooked Joe Biden’s fault,” Trump said on “Truth Society.”
But studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crime than people born in the United States. The Times reported earlier this year that Trump was fundraising with Thomas Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who helped implement the widely derided family separation policy.
In response, Trump spokesperson Carolyn 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.”
Levitt said that if Trump returns to the Oval Office, “He will restore all previous policies and implement a new crackdown that will impact all criminal smuggling in the world and mobilize all necessary federal and state power to carry out the “largest deportations” in U.S. history. “
Trump has appeared to backtrack in recent weeks, saying on a podcast that immigrants who graduate from U.S. universities should receive green cards. The comments prompted a backlash from his allies.
His spokesman later clarified that not all graduates would receive green cards, saying “it only applies to college graduates who undergo the most thorough vetting and will never lower wages or workers’ salaries in the United States.”
Earlier this year, House Republicans heeded Trump’s demands and blocked a bipartisan border security bill after months of negotiations in the Senate. The negotiations also exposed divisions among Democrats and reflected two key points Biden needs to make on Thursday: how to speak to voters who think the southern border is too porous while emphasizing the contributions of immigrants already in the country.
Pedro Rios of the American Civil Service Committee talks to asylum seekers at the border near San Diego in June.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said, “Every American should know that Trump proudly repealed the strongest bipartisan border bill in a generation – the Border Patrol and the Stand with fentanyl traffickers on our safety.
Padilla opposed the Winter Compromise because it did not include reforms to aid the country’s farm workers and undocumented immigrants. Biden said at the time he would sign the deal, but it never made it to his desk due to Trump’s objections.
Although he doesn’t like the deal, Padilla said Biden has done a good job through executive orders and public statements aimed at protecting the southern border and helping people already here. Padilla noted that a recent executive order would protect immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens who have resided continuously in the United States for at least ten years. The move allows up to 500,000 of those immigrants to quickly obtain U.S. citizenship.
Unlike Padilla, Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., supported the Senate compromise. The former Phoenix mayor saw this as a good start, immediately expressing constituent dissatisfaction and “re-establishing operational control of the border.” Stanton frequently travels to border stations and ports of entry with Republicans and says what he is witnessing is unsustainable.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration raised legal standards for asylum applications and restricted access to asylum for illegal border crossers amid an average of more than 2,500 arrests per day, which is common.
Administration officials noted that the change would be stymied without additional funding, which the border bill would have provided. Mexico has agreed to accept immigrants from other countries, including Venezuela and Cuba, allowing some to quickly leave the United States.
Still, after arrests hit a record high late last year, the Border Patrol said preliminary data showed apprehensions have dropped 25% since Biden’s announcement.
Figures for May showed arrests dropped to the third-lowest month of his tenure.
Customs and Border Protection reported that in fiscal year 2022, law enforcement agents discovered 895 migrant remains, three times the number found in 2018.
In this debate, Stanton said, Biden can point to those achievements and lay out how Republican intransigence undermines any efforts to find more lasting solutions. Stanton attended the signing ceremony of Biden’s executive order, where he highlighted the work of a former unlicensed nurse helping COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. The nurse benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“Biden understands the fundamentals of needing strong border security and proper immigration, smart immigration reform,” Stanton said. “Those things always go together.”
Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.
