Washington — President Biden and former President Donald Trump are both set to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in separate events on Thursday, setting up a showdown over immigration, a defining issue of the 2024 election.
Mr. Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, to meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders as he puts pressure on Republicans to take up a bipartisan deal on border security provisions, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday.
Jean-Pierre said the president would also see for himself what Border Patrol agents do every day to secure the border, adding that "they need more resources."
Trump is expected to be in Eagle Pass, Texas, a little more than 300 miles away. His campaign said he will make remarks during the visit.
A new Monmouth University poll released Monday found that more than eight in 10 Americans see illegal immigration as a serious problem, with concern about the issue increasing among Republicans, Democrats and independents in recent years.
Republicans have repeatedly hammered the Biden administration on immigration heading into the election year. Earlier this month, House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border.
But Republicans failure to pass the bipartisan border security deal that took months to negotiate and included many of the concessions that the GOP has demanded for years has given Democrats an opportunity to go on offense. Senate Republicans killed the deal after Trump announced his opposition. Democrats have accused Republicans of posturing instead of working toward solutions to the border crisis.
The president's visit also comes as he's weighing whether to severely restrict access to the U.S. asylum system, which has been strained amid record levels of migrants arrivals, sources previously told CBS News.
Mr. Biden "will reiterate his calls for congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more," Jean-Pierre said.
Mr. Biden last visited the border in January 2023, making a trip to El Paso.
Trump's campaign called Mr. Biden's visit a "last-minute, insincere attempt to chase" him to the border.
Nidia Cavazos, Jacob Rosen and Bo Erickson contributed reporting.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
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