Migration plays an important role in the US election campaign: US President Biden and his potential challenger Trump visited the border with Mexico in parallel to send very different messages.
This is what confrontation sounds like: In Eagle Pass, Texas, Donald Trump introduced a new term into the campaign rhetoric: “Biden Migrant Crime.”
This is what willingness to compromise sounds like: 500 kilometers away, Joe Biden stretched out his hand: “Let’s try it together,” said the incumbent in Brownsville, Texas, addressing Trump: “Tell your party friends in Congress to support the bipartisan border security law voices!”
This refers to a package of measures for border security that both parties had negotiated in the Senate and which is now being blocked by the Republicans in the House of Representatives, presumably at Trump’s behest.
Familiar Trump rhetoric
On his first visit to the border in more than a year, Biden continued to pass the buck to the opposition, but his appearance was at least about a solution, about cooperation in the service of the cause.
With Trump, on the other hand, everything revolved around the usual horror scenarios: the people who reach the USA via the Mexican border come from prisons and insane asylums, they are terrorists, according to the familiar Trump rhetoric. To illustrate this, he took up a tragedy that was getting under the skin of Americans these days: the death of 22-year-old student Laken Riley from Georgia, who was – presumably – killed by a Venezuelan who crossed the border illegally at El. a year and a half ago Paso had come.
Biden will never mention Riley’s name, Trump claims, calling her alleged killer a “monster”.
“Crooked Joe Biden”, the fraudulent Biden, Trump’s standard nickname for his rival, brought the “murderer” into the country. The calculation seems to be that such an escalation will bring more votes than a solution-oriented compromise.
No majority in sight for law
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut finds this frustrating. He is one of the authors of the blocked law. Trump has no interest in defusing the situation at the border, Murphy said on CNN. Ongoing chaos benefits him politically more.
And so there is still no majority in sight for the bipartisan law that would have provided more money for border protection, accelerated asylum procedures and the power for the president to completely seal off the border if necessary. For now, Biden’s only option is to issue a number of the planned measures by decree.
The need for action can be supported by figures: Last year, more than two million people crossed the southern border into the USA illegally. Under Trump it was never more than 800,000 annually.
Sebastian Hesse, ARD Washington, tagesschau, March 1st, 2024 6:35 a.m