When President Biden and former President Trump take the stage in Atlanta on Thursday, immigration and the humanitarian crisis at the southern border are almost certain to be a point of tension.
Many polls show that voters believe Trump is best positioned to address the issue, and he has continually criticized Biden for it. He has blamed the crisis on the policies of his successor and has filled his social media with missives about crimes allegedly committed by immigrants, referring to them as “Biden migrant murders.” He has promised to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without legal authorization.
Trump has referred to immigrants as “animals” and has even suggested they should become 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 fighting league of immigrants, only immigrants,'” Trump said before an evangelical Christian conference in Washington, D.C., last weekend, referring to Dana White, leader of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Such comments have earned Trump points with his base and beyond.
Biden faces a tougher challenge, allies and advisers say, and needs to focus on a nuanced message Thursday night that emphasizes the balance between the need for border security and humanity for immigrants who have already entered this country.
“I don’t think it’s either/or and I don’t think the American public thinks it’s either/or,” 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 monitored found that two-thirds of respondents in key battleground states want “a balanced approach to the immigration system and report high levels of support.” to policies that address both border security and border routes.” to the citizens.”
“This is what the president is pushing for and the polling data suggests that this is what the American public wants,” Barreto told the Times. “They want to see an orderly, well-managed border and they also have tremendous empathy for long-standing undocumented immigrants and want to see them come out of the shadows.”
Biden has taken two actions recently that reflect this balancing act: imposing limits on asylum seekers and clearing the path to citizenship for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
For the third month in a row, Gallup respondents in April cited immigration as the most important issue facing the United States. A recent Washington Post-Schar School of Policy and Government poll of swing state voters found that only 42% of respondents said immigrants in the country illegally should be deported. Nearly 60% said they should be offered the opportunity to apply for legal status.
Still, Trump's handling of immigration is preferred to Biden's, 52% to 26%, according to the same survey.
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 were charged in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl in Houston. “We have a new Biden immigrant slaughter. It's only going to get worse and it's all the fault of corrupt Joe Biden,” Trump said on Truth Social.
But immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States, studies show. 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 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 reinstate all of his previous policies, implement new crackdowns that will send shock waves to every criminal smuggler in the world, and marshal all necessary federal and state powers to institute the largest deportation.” operation in the history of the United States.
In recent weeks, Trump appeared to tone down, saying in a podcast that immigrants who graduate from American universities should get a green card. The comments provoked a fierce reaction from his allies.
His spokesperson later clarified that not all graduates would get green cards, saying it would “only apply to the most scrutinized college graduates who would never undermine American wages or workers.”
Earlier this year, House Republicans heeded Trump's demands and killed 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 address on Thursday: how to speak to voters who think the southern border is too porous while emphasizing the contributions of immigrants already on the border. country.
Pedro Ríos of the American Friends Service Committee speaks with asylum seekers at the border near San Diego in June.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“Every American should know that Trump proudly killed the strongest bipartisan border bill in a generation: siding with fentanyl traffickers over Border Patrol and our security,” said campaign spokesman Kevin Muñoz. , hinting at an avenue of attack Biden could use on Thursday.
Padilla opposed the winter compromise because it did not include reforms to help farm workers and undocumented immigrants already in the country. Biden said at the time that he would have signed the deal, but it never reached his desk, mainly because of Trump's opposition.
Although he didn't like the deal, Padilla said Biden has done a good job through executive orders and public pronouncements aimed at both securing the southern border and helping people already here. Padilla pointed to a recent executive order that would 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 those immigrants to quickly access a path to US citizenship.
Unlike Padilla, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) supported the Senate compromise deal. The former Phoenix mayor saw it as a good start that he immediately addressed his constituents' frustrations and would have “reestablished operational control” of the border. Stanton has frequently traveled to border stations and ports of entry (often with Republicans) and has said that what he has witnessed is unsustainable.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration raised the legal standard for asylum claims and restricted access to asylum for illegal border crossers when arrests average more than 2,500 a day, as has been common.
The change is hampered without the additional funding that the border bill would have provided, administration officials say. Mexico has agreed to accept immigrants from other countries, such as Venezuela and Cuba, allowing some to be quickly expelled from the United States. But officials cannot rely on continued cooperation from other countries, such as China, to accept their citizens back.
Still, after a record number of arrests late last year, Border Patrol said preliminary data since Biden's announcement showed arrests had dropped by 25%.
May figures show arrests fell to the third-lowest level of any month during his presidency.
Customs and Border Protection reported that agents recovered 895 migrant remains in fiscal year 2022, three times more than those discovered in 2018. Advocates say the number is a gross undercount.
Stanton said the debate is a moment where Biden can point to these achievements and expose how Republican intransigence has torpedoed any efforts to achieve more lasting solutions. Stanton was at Biden's executive order signing ceremony where he highlighted the work of a former undocumented nurse who helped COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. The nurse had benefited from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“Biden understands the rationale of saying you need strong border security and proper immigration, smart immigration reform,” Stanton said. “Those have always gone together.”
Times staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.
