The same day that President Joe Biden is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, his likely opponent in November's election, former President Donald Trump, is making a trip of his own.

What You Need To Know

  • Former President Donald Trump is making a trip to Texas on Thursday, the same day that President Joe Biden is also heading to the U.S.-Mexico border

  • Trump, the far and away frontrunner for the Republican nomination, will travel to Eagle Pass, Texas, which is located in a corridor currently seeing the most border crossings

  • The Republican is expected to speak at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass which has become the epicenter of the state's conflict with the Biden administration

  • While in Texas, Trump is expected to lay out updated immigration proposals that would mark a dramatic escalation of the approach he used in office and that drew alarms from civil rights activists and numerous court challenges

On Thursday, Trump, the far and away frontrunner for the Republican nomination, will travel to Eagle Pass, Texas, which is located in a corridor currently seeing the most border crossings.

The dueling visits creates a stark split-screen on the issue of immigration, one that recent polling shows is top of mind for many Americans heading to the polls in November's presidential election, with both of the likely candidates blaming each other for issues at the southern border.

Trump, for his part, is expected to speak at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass which has become the epicenter of the state's conflict with the Biden administration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a staunch Republican ally of the former president, seized the park and forced U.S. Border Patrol agents out. The Biden administration sued and was granted access by the U.S. Supreme Court for federal agents to cut razor wire which was put in place by Texas. Abbott has since put up more wire in a challenge to the federal government's authority.

According to Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the former president will meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, as well as state and local law enforcement officials, and will also "outline his plan to put America first and secure the border immediately upon taking office."

Biden, on the other hand, will be in Brownsville, Texas, about 300 miles south of Eagle Pass, where he will get a briefing on border security operations and deliver remarks stressing the importance of passing a bipartisan border security agreement that was scuttled earlier this month by congressional Republicans.

Trump was a major opponent of the deal, successfully urging Republicans to kill it so as to not give Biden a win on a key issue for his campaign. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch Trump ally, declared the bill dead on arrival in his GOP-controlled chamber.

Biden vowed that Americans will know who was responsible for killing the deal, vowing to hammer Trump and Republicans "every day between now and November" for scuttling the border agreement.

"I’ll be taking this issue to the country, and the voters are going to know that just at the moment we were going to secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the MAGA Republicans said no because they’re afraid of Donald Trump," the president said earlier this month.

Trump has taken a similar approach, writing in an op-ed for the Daily Mail on Thursday that Biden is "chasing" him to the U.S.-Mexico border, "no doubt desperate to shirk blame for the catastrophe he has caused."

"Biden is preposterously trying to blame me and Congressional Republicans for the national security and public safety disaster he has created," Trump wrote. He is claiming Republicans need to approve legislation for him to secure the border. But the truth is, Joe Biden does not need a bill to solve the problem at the border — America needs to fire Joe Biden to solve the problem at the border."

While in Texas, Trump is expected to lay out updated immigration proposals that would mark a dramatic escalation of the approach he used in office and that drew alarms from civil rights activists and numerous court challenges.

Some of those include reviving and expanding his controversial travel ban, imposing "ideological screening” for migrants, terminating all work permits and cutting off funding for shelter and transportation for people who are in the country illegally.

According to an AP-NORC poll in January, the share of voters concerned about immigration rose to 35% from 27% last year. Fifty-five percent of Republicans say the government needs to focus on immigration in 2024, while 22% of Democrats listed immigration as a priority. That’s up from 45% and 14%, respectively, from December 2022.

The number of people who are illegally crossing the U.S. border has been rising for years for complicated reasons that include climate change, war and unrest in other nations, the economy, and cartels that see migration as a cash cow.

The administration's approach has been to pair crackdowns at the border with increasing legal pathways for migrants designed to steer people into arriving by plane with sponsors, not illegally on foot to the border.

Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January, but there were record highs in December. The numbers of migrants flowing across the U.S-Mexico border have far outpaced the capacity of an immigration system that has not been substantially updated in decades. Trump and Republicans claim Biden is refusing to act, but absent law change from Congress, any major policies are likely to be challenged or held up in court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.