The border between Mexico and the USA is more than 3,000 kilometers long. Illegal crossings from the South have been a problem for Washington for decades. But in the 2024 election year, no issue concerns Americans as much as immigration.
Like the Germans, US citizens currently rate the issue of migration and asylum as the most pressing, as surveys from both countries show. Given the challenge, many voters consider the answers provided by politicians to be inadequate.
As in Germany, politicians in the USA sometimes shamelessly use the migration issue to distort facts in order to collect votes in an election year and to attack their political opponents.
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On Thursday, Texas saw a long-distance duel between the men who want to be back in the White House in 2025 over the highly controversial issue. Donald Trump visited the border in Eagle Pass. The small border town on the Rio Grande has seen large numbers of migrants coming from Central America to the USA in recent months. Just before Christmas, the number reached a record of more than 4,000 people per day.
That’s exactly where Trump met with Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday afternoon (local time). Republican Abbott is known for his tough hand towards migrants. He had floating buoys installed in the Rio Grande to prevent men, women and children from crossing the border river.
The dispute with Biden’s government recently escalated because Texas officials prevented the national border guards from doing their work, saying they were in charge in the city. As a result, a Mexican woman and her two small children drowned while trying to cross the river.
“It looks like a war here,” says Trump
Meanwhile, around 450 kilometers further west, Joe Biden looked at the border. The official had scheduled the visit to Brownsville at short notice after Trump’s travel plans became known. From the Democrat’s point of view, an opportunity to build a counter-narrative to his rival.
This is as follows: It is the Republicans and not the Democrats who are preventing the border from being protected. For months, Biden has been working on a bipartisan solution, “the toughest and most effective law ever.”
100 new judges and lawyers are supposed to help: President Joe Biden on the border with Mexico
Those: picture alliance/dpa/AP/Evan Vucci
But after Trump intervened, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked the bill’s passage. “Stop playing politics with this issue. We must come together and work together for the American people.”
In fact, a few weeks ago, Biden presented a compromise text that guaranteed border guards more money and tougher access rights. Because two million asylum procedures are currently pending, 100 new judges and lawyers would be hired. Thanks to the law, he could even “close the border” if the influx of migrants became too large, the president explained.
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But the chairman of the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson, continues to block. The Republicans’ recent move to initiate impeachment proceedings against Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the management of the US-Mexico border shows how irreconcilable the dispute in the US Congress is.
A number shows how urgent the situation is: Last December alone, US border guards recorded more than 300,000 illegal crossings. 55 percent of Americans say that “the high number of illegal migrants” threatens their country’s interests. 28 percent say migration is the biggest problem in their nation, a top figure. In Germany it was 20 percent in February.
Illegal border crossings at Eagle Pass in Texas
Quelle: picture alliance/Anadolu/Lokman Vural Elibol
Among Republicans, 57 percent even name migration as the most pressing problem. According to the polls, Trump is already the clear winner of this issue and of Thursday’s duel. US citizens undoubtedly have more trust in the ex-president when it comes to the question of who will better secure national borders. Trump is a whopping 35 points ahead of Biden.
“It looks like a war here,” Trump said as he visited the border in Eagle Pass on Thursday. From across the river, a group of migrants loudly shouted “Trump! Trump” after the ex-president waved to the men and briefly raised his right fist upwards. “Can you believe it – they like Trump!” he said, laughing to the bystander.
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“This is Joe Biden’s invasion,” Trump continued. People from countries like China, Iran and Yemen are coming to the USA, “from countries that are not friendly to us”. The migrants look “like warriors” and are criminals who rape and rob. Some states specifically sent prison inmates to the USA. People “who speak languages that no one here understands” and brought in diseases.
Trump has never been able to prove that convicted criminals were being deliberately trafficked into the country or that armed migrant combat troops were deliberately infiltrating the nation. The crime rate among migrants is also lower than among Americans.
But there is no doubt that resentment is increasing in all parts of society that not only in the South, but increasingly in metropolises such as New York and Chicago, so many homeless migrants are being seen who are trying to ensure their survival through begging and street sales. The closer the election on November 5th gets, the more bitter the dispute over the issue will become.