Biden To Visit US-Mexico Border On Thursday

The New York Times reportingthat President Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas on the US-Mexico border on Thursday as the White House seeks to mitigate the fallout from a migration crisis which has escalated into one of the central wedge issues of the 2024 general election.

• Gallup's most recent national survey polled President Biden's approval on immigration at 28% - a low for his presidency and down 7 points since November.
• The Times notes that former President Donald Trump will make a parallel trip to the border on Thursday with a visit to Eagle Pass, Texas, the site of a major junket from Congressional Republicans in January highlighting border policy.
• Biden is currently weighing up a package of executive actions to enhance border security but it is unclear what measures could be upheld as similar executive actions during the Trump Administration were overturned by federal courts. Moreover, any executive action would come without tens of billion of dollars required to beef up border personnel and infrastructure.
• Biden is likely to announce some new measures on Thursday and argue that House Republicans, on the instructions of Trump, torpedoed a comprehensive package of border reforms which could have effectively secured the border.
• Biden pledged in remarks at the White House, after the bipartisan border deal collapsed, to tell voters "every day between now and November" that Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are the "only reason the border is not secure."