Closing summary
Joe Biden and Donald Trump made dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election-season clash over immigration.
Biden was in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, where he implored Republicans to “show some spine” and support a bipartisan border security deal, as he challenged Trump to join him in calling on Congress to pass the “toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill the country has ever seen”.
Trump, meanwhile, delivered remarks in Eagle Pass, where he accused Biden of destroying the country and promised an immigration crackdown far beyond what he attempted in his first term.
The House has passed a short-term funding bill, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown that would have taken place this weekend. The bill’s passage comes after congressional leaders from both parties announced the agreement on Wednesday.
Donald Trump has asked a judge to delay the start of his criminal trial on charges of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House until after 2024. Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a new Florida trial date of 8 July.
Trump also appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state’s ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts.
The lower house of Alabama’s legislature passed a law to protect providers of in vitro fertilization care, after the state supreme court earlier this month ruled that embryos used in the procedure were “children”.
Updated
Trump asks to delay classified documents trial until after 2024
Donald Trump has asked a judge to delay the start of his criminal trial on charges of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House until after 2024.
As we reported earlier, special counsel Jack Smith has asked for an 8 July start to the trial.
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Special counsel proposes trial date of 8 July in classified documents case
Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a new trial date of 8 July for the criminal case over Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstruction of justice.
A Republican member of the January 6 committee has said the supreme court’s decision to wade into Donald Trump’s immunity case will deny Americans crucial information about the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who was ousted by primary voters angry at her participation in the hearings that followed the insurrection, also demanded the justices come to a speedy decision.
In a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, said voters needed to have a verdict on the presumed Republican presidential nominee before they go to the polls in November. She wrote:
Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear. Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS [supreme court of the US] should decide this case promptly.
Some legal experts are warning the supreme court’s action, along with delays already affecting several of the other legal cases Trump is facing, could have consequences for democracy.
While many believe the court will ultimately confirm the rejection by a Washington DC appeals court of Trump’s claim, they say the delay could prove harmful.
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Donald Trump was asked about Mitch McConnell’s announcement on Wednesday that he will step down in November as the Republican Senate leader.
After he delivered remarks in Eagle Pass, Trump said “a lot of people are calling me to politic for that particular job”.
Asked who he would like to see replace McConnell, he replied:
Well, I can’t say that. A lot of good choices.
Updated
Here’s a clip from Joe Biden’s speech in Brownsville calling on Trump to join him in telling Congress to pass the bipartisan immigration bill that passed in the Senate but has since stalled in the House.
Biden described the bill as a “win for the American people” that was “derailed by partisan politics”, and urged Republicans to “show a little spine” and back the bill.
“Here's what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I'll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill.”
— The Recount (@therecount) February 29, 2024
— Biden in Brownsville, Texas pic.twitter.com/xU0pLFaMhM
Biden calls on Trump to work together on border deal
Biden says the border security bill is a truly bipartisan initiative, noting that compromise is part of the process, saying: “That’s how democracy works. That’s how it’s supposed to.”
Biden calls on senators who oppose the bill to “set politics aside and pass it on merit – not on whether it’s going to benefit one party or benefit the other party”.
He calls on Donald Trump to stop telling members of Congress to block his administration: “Let’s remember who we work for, for God’s sake. We work for the American people.”
Join me or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together. It’s the toughest most efficient, most effective border security bill the country has ever seen. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done?
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Biden says that on his first day as president, he introduced a bill that he sent to Congress with a plan to fix the “broken” immigration system and to secure the border. “But no action was taken,” he says.
He says that months ago, his team began a serious negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators that resulted in a “compromise bill” that he describes as the “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country”.
The deal would include hiring additional border security officers after four years of border agents working overtime and making “major sacrifices”.
“We need to do more,” Biden says.
It’s time to step up and to provide them with significantly more personnel and capability, but also more immigration judges to help handle the backlog of two million [asylum] cases.
The bipartisan border security deal “is a win for the American people”, he adds.
That’s a win for the people of Texas and it’s fair for those who legitimately have a right to come here to begin with.
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Biden delivers remarks in Brownsville
Joe Biden is now delivering remarks in Brownsville in South Texas.
Biden begins by speaking about the devastating wildfires in the Texas Panhandle that has crossed into Oklahoma. He says he stands with everyone affected by these wildfires. “When disaster strikes, there’s no red state or blue state,” he says.
He then moves on to his visit to the US-Mexico border. He says he has been briefed from officials from the border patrol, immigration enforcement and asylum officers, who he says are all doing “incredible work under really tough conditions”. They desperately need more resources, he says.
Trump also speaks about the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was out on her morning run at the University of Georgia when authorities say a stranger dragged her into a secluded area and killed her.
A Venezuelan man, identified as Jose Antonio Ibarra, has been arrested for Riley’s death. Ibarra had entered the US illegally and been allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.
Trump has blamed Joe Biden and his border policies for the Augusta University student’s fatal beating.
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Trump delivers remarks in Eagle Pass
Donald Trump has begun delivering remarks during his visit to the US-Mexico border. He begins by commending the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on his efforts at the border.
Trump moves on to say that the US is being “overrun” by “Biden migrant crime”, which he claims is a “new form of vicious violation” to the country.
He accuses Biden of being the most incompetent president the US has ever had, and of transporting “entire columns of fighting-aged men” who “look like warriors” to the US.
Trump’s comments are the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seems to be going beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead are going into the territory of outright extremism or racism.
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Donald Trump has been meeting with officials from the national guard and the department of public safety as he tours Eagle Pass alongside Texas governor Greg Abbott.
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Alabama house passes bill to protect IVF providers following state supreme court ruling
The lower house of Alabama’s legislature has passed a law to protect providers of in vitro fertilization care, the Montgomery Advertiser reports, after the state supreme court earlier this month ruled embryos used in the procedure were “children”.
The court’s decisions raised the possibility that practices providing the care, which is typically used by people who struggle to have children, could face civil suits or criminal prosecution. The bill, backed by the legislature’s Republican majority, would prevent that by protecting providers from those consequences.
Here’s more, from the Advertiser:
The Alabama state House passed overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday granting civil and criminal immunity to in vitro fertilization patients and medical professionals.
The bill passed by a vote of 94-6.
Filed by Terri Collins, R-Morgan County, HB237 reaffirms Attorney General Steve Marshall’s statement that the state has ‘no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers.’
‘This would at least keep the clinics open and the families moving forward,’ Collins said.
The state Supreme Court in February ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected as children, a controversial decision that thrust the state into the national spotlight. The ruling has been condemned by both Democrats and Republicans.
In the wake of the court’s ruling, multiple clinics that offer IVF care in the state halted all appointments indefinitely, including Alabama Fertility and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System.
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In Brownsville, Joe Biden is meeting with members of the border patrol on what looks to be the banks of the Rio Grande, which forms the border between Texas and Mexico:
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Joe Biden arrives in Brownsville, Texas
Joe Biden has arrived in Brownsville, Texas, before his meetings with federal officials and a speech about border security.
According to the White House, he’s expected to meet with officers from US customs and border protection, immigration and customs enforcement and other federal agencies. He will deliver remarks at 4.30pm ET, where he will likely press Congress to act on a border security compromise that Republicans are presently blocking.
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Donald Trump arrives in Texas
Donald Trump has arrived in Texas, where he’ll be visiting the border with Mexico in the town of Eagle Pass:
JUST LANDED in Del Rio, Texas on the way to Eagle Pass! pic.twitter.com/fOAFQEJcY6
— Steven Cheung (@TheStevenCheung) February 29, 2024
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, will probably outline hard-line measures he would take to stop people from entering the country without permission, if elected. Such crossings have surged since Joe Biden took office, for a variety of reasons. Here’s more about that:
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House passes short-term funding bill to prevent shutdown
The House of Representatives has just approved a measure that will push back government funding deadlines and ward off a shutdown that would have begun after Friday:
320-99: The House passes a continuing resolution that would move the deadlines to fund the federal government to March 8 and March 22.
— The Recount (@therecount) February 29, 2024
The measure now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. pic.twitter.com/KXYadqChpO
It’s now up to the Senate to approve the bill, and Congress will then shift to considering full-year appropriations bills. Here’s more on that:
Donald Trump’s latest ballot headache is in Illinois, where a judge ordered his name removed yesterday on 14th amendment grounds. The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports that he is appealing the ruling:
Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state’s ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts.
Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday.
The Illinois decision came after the Colorado supreme court ruled similarly, saying Trump couldn’t hold office again because he had participated in an insurrection while an officer of the United States. Another decision in Maine, by the state’s secretary of state, decided to keep Trump off the ballot there as well, though that is now on hold.
The Colorado decision went before the US supreme court in February, which has yet to rule on the case, though the justices expressed a load of skepticism of the claims that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to run again.
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Expect Joe Biden and Donald Trump to outline very different visions for dealing with undocumented migration when they appear on Texas’s border with Mexico today, the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports:
Joe Biden and his all-but-certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, will make dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election season clash over immigration.
In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande, Biden is expected to hammer Republicans for blocking a bipartisan border security deal after Trump expressed his vocal opposition to the measure. Hundreds of miles north-west, Trump will deliver remarks from a state park in Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of a showdown between the Biden administration and the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.
Hours before the president and former president arrived on the 2,000-mile stretch of border, a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked a new Texas law that would give police power to arrest people suspected of entering the US unlawfully.
Trump, who Republicans appear poised to choose as their nominee for a third consecutive time, has once again made immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign by describing the United States under Biden as overrun by undocumented immigrants who “poisoning the blood of our country”, rhetoric that echoes white supremacists and Adolf Hitler. While in Texas, the former president is expected to lay out his plans for an immigration crackdown far beyond what he attempted in his first term.
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The day so far
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both will appear on Texas’s border with Mexico later today to discuss their approaches to handling undocumented immigrants. They are visiting border crossings in cities experiencing starkly different situations, and the president is expected to press Republicans to support a bipartisan proposal that would tighten immigration policy in exchange for approving military aid to Ukraine and Israel. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas blocked a law that would have allowed police to detain people who enter the state illegally, the latest skirmish in an ongoing fight between the Biden administration and Republicans who control Austin.
Here’s what else is going on:
Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, appeared before a House committee and acknowledged mistakes in how he had handled his hospitalization.
Biden’s campaign will reach out to backers of a protest-vote effort in Michigan’s Democratic primary aimed at signaling discontent with the president’s support for Israel.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a centrist House Republican, will try to force the chamber’s leaders to hold a vote on Ukraine aid and border security legislation.
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Judge stops Texas from arresting people suspected of illegally entering from Mexico
A federal judge has blocked a law enacted by Texas’s Republican-dominated government that would have allowed state police to arrest people who are suspected of entering from Mexico without authorization, the Associated Press reports.
Here’s more:
The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge David Ezra pauses a law that was set to take effect March 5 and came as President Joe Biden and his likely Republican challenger in November, Donald Trump, were visiting Texas’ southern border to discuss immigration. Texas officials are expected to appeal.
Opponents have called the Texas measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law that opponents rebuked as a “Show Me Your Papers” bill. The U.S. Supreme Court partially struck down the Arizona law, but some Texas Republican leaders, who often refer to the migrant influx as an “invasion,” want that ruling to get a second look.
Ezra cited the Constitution’s supremacy clause and U.S. Supreme Court decisions as factors that contributed to his ruling. He said the Texas law would conflict with federal immigration law, and the nation’s foreign relations and treaty obligations.
Allowing Texas to “permanently supersede federal directives” due to a so-called invasion would “amount to nullification of federal law and authority — a notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War,” the judge wrote.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision on the Arizona law, Ezra wrote that the Texas law was preempted, and he struck down state officials’ claims that large numbers of illegal border crossings constituted an “invasion.”
The lawsuit is among several legal battles between Texas and Biden’s administration over how far the state can go to try to prevent migrants from crossing the border.
The measure would allow state law enforcement officers to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, they could agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the country or face a misdemeanor charge for entering the U.S. illegally. Migrants who don’t leave after being ordered to do so could be arrested again and charged with a more serious felony.
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Supporters of Michigan 'uncommitted' campaign say Biden official's comments 'deeply offensive'
After a write-in campaign in protest of Joe Biden’s support for Israel managed to win about 13% of the vote in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday, a top official on the president’s campaign said this morning that they’d be reaching out to the organizers.
But the comments on NPR by Mitch Landrieu, the Biden re-election campaign’s co-chair, did not go over well with one of the groups involved in the effort, which did not prevent the president from winning the swing state’s Democratic primary overwhelmingly.
Asked to respond to the “uncommitted” votes, here’s what Landrieu had to say:
We’re going to continue to talk to them. We’re going to continue to listen to what it is that they have to say. When you’re the commander in chief and when, in fact, you are representing the United States’ interests, there are no issues that are easy. And this is obviously a very painful issue for them and for lots of other folks in the United States of America. We’re going to continue to talk to them and then ask them to think about the choices and what the consequences are about electing somebody who wants to have a Muslim ban, electing somebody who is going to be much, much worse than the difficult circumstances that we have right now. The president is going to reach out, we’re going to continue to listen, and he’s going to continue to work with them as we find an answer to this very difficult problem.
Here’s what Listen to Michigan, one of the groups supporting the write-in campaign, had to say about that:
Our statement in response to @JoeBiden's campaign co-chair @MitchLandrieu's comments on NPR. pic.twitter.com/6E5laa3jgq
— #ListenToMichigan (@Listen2michigan) February 29, 2024
Mike Johnson’s predecessor as House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was booted from his post by rightwing Republicans when he worked with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown. Johnson is trying to avoid that fate, and his hesitancy to put a bill sending military aid to Ukraine to a vote is seen as part of that. But as the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports, the Democrats who were fine with letting McCarthy perish now indicate they may be willing to save Johnson, should he allow the vote to go through:
The Democratic leadership in Congress has suggested it would protect the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, if he bucks his far-right colleagues and brings a stalled $60bn Ukraine military aid package to a vote, as a new poll shows public support for Ukraine is now fractured down party-political lines.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, floated the offer in an interview with the New York Times, saying “a reasonable number” of Democrats would vote to save the Republican speaker if the Ukraine vote resulted in a Republican mutiny.
Far-right members of Congress including Marjorie Taylor Greene have said they would seek to depose Johnson if he brings the foreign aid bill forward, threatening to send Republicans toward yet another protracted leadership crisis like the one that paralyzed the House under former speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Jeffries said that if Johnson were “to do the right thing”, there would be a “reasonable number of people” on the Democratic side “who will take the position that he should not fall as a result”. But Jeffries said he had not discussed the matter with Johnson, who has said Congress “must take care of America’s needs first”.
Republican congressman moves to force bill on Ukraine aid, border security bill, but Democrats skeptical – report
Bloomberg News reports that Republican congressman Brian Fitzpatrick will try to force a vote in the House on legislation to tighten border security and approve new aid to Israel.
Fitzpatrick plans to circulate a discharge petition, which, if signed by a majority of lawmakers, would force a floor vote on the legislation. The chamber’s Republican speaker Mike Johnson and his deputies oppose the bill, but that view isn’t shared by Fitzpatrick and other centrists in their party:
UKRAINE: @RepBrianFitz says he has started discharge petition process to force an Ukraine / Border bill vote on floor. Rule for signatures next week
— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) February 29, 2024
However, House Democratic Caucus chair Pete Aguilar earlier today downplayed Fitzpatrick’s campaign, raising the possibility it will not attract the support it needs to succeed:
.@RepPeteAguilar throws more cold water on centrists’ House discharge petition on nat security/border.
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) February 29, 2024
Aguilar calls it “well-meaning,” but adds “the solution is incredibly clear: It is the bipartisan solution that has 70 votes out of the United States Senate.”
Updated
Republican Indiana congressman Jim Banks grilled Lloyd Austin during his appearance before the House armed services committee.
While Biden says he has confidence in Austin, the defense secretary is in hot water for waiting days to tell the president he had been hospitalized, since his job requires him to be available at all hours to respond to crises. Here’s Banks’s exchange with Austin:
.@repjimbanks: "Either the president is that aloof or you are irrelevant. Which one is it?@SecDef Austin: "It's neither. The president is not aloof and I participate in all of the critical decision making." pic.twitter.com/kD8B406kar
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 29, 2024
'I did not handle it right', defense secretary Austin says of delay in notifying Biden of hospitalization
Defense secretary Lloyd Austin is testifying before the House armed services committee about why he waited days to notify Joe Biden that he had been hospitalized in January.
In his opening statement, Austin acknowledged mistakes in how he handled his hospitalization, which was connected to prostate cancer treatment. Here’s more:
“I never intended to keep my hospitalization from the White House or from anybody else.”
— The Recount (@therecount) February 29, 2024
— Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin, who testifies before the House Armed Services Committee that there was a “breakdown in notifications” to explain his cancer hospitalization in January pic.twitter.com/uKTQqb2YcE
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has released details of what he’ll be up to during his visit to Eagle Pass, Texas, today.
“President Trump will meet with brave US Border Patrol agents and state and local law enforcement officials working on the frontlines of Biden’s crisis, and he will outline his plan to put America first and secure the border immediately upon taking office,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
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A major human rights body will today explore how climate change is driving people from their homes, the Guardian’s Nina Lakhani reports. Here’s more:
Communities under imminent threat from rising sea level, floods and other extreme weather will testify in Washington on Thursday, as the region’s foremost human rights body holds a first-of-its-kind hearing on how climate catastrophe is driving forced migration across the Americas.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear from people on the frontline of the climate emergency in Mexico, Honduras, the Bahamas and Colombia, as part of a special hearing sought by human rights groups in Latin America, the US and the Caribbean.
A growing number of migrants and refugees trying to seek sanctuary in the US and other countries are being displaced by hurricanes, heatwaves and drought, as well as slow-onset climate disasters such as ocean acidification, coastal erosion and desertification.
The witnesses will include Higinio Alberto Ramírez from Honduras, who last year suffered life-altering injuries when a fire razed a detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, killing 43 migrants from Latin America. Ramírez is from Cedeño, a coastal fishing town that is disappearing under rising sea levels, and was trying to reach the US to pay off family debts after tidal waves destroyed the shrimp nursery where he and his father worked.
“The case of the Ramírez family is a tragic reminder that forced migration is not an issue for the future. Sea levels have been rising due to climate change for decades. States and humanitarian systems must catch up and ensure that protections are in place,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Mexico based Institute for Women in Migration (Imumi), one of the groups which requested the hearing.
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Here’s the Guardian’s Michael Gonzalez on how Joe Biden will see a starkly different situation in Brownsville to what Donald Trump is expected to encounter in Eagle Pass:
Joe Biden will travel to the US-Mexico border on Thursday amid rising concerns expressed by voters nationwide over immigration, as pressure builds on the US president to respond to alarmist rightwing claims of “invasion”, “crisis” and waves of “migrant crime”.
But when Biden arrives in Brownsville, Texas, he is likely to encounter scenes like those prevailing earlier this week in the city of almost 200,000 that lies at the eastern end of the border. Shoppers walked the streets and preparations were under way for annual binational celebrations, Charro Days and Sombrero fest, which highlight the city’s close relationship with its Mexican sister city, Matamoros.
Border patrol processing facilities in downtown Brownsville, where migrants can usually be found before or after making a formal request for asylum, and the bus station, where migrants are often heading out of town, were empty after a drop in the number of people crossing the border in the last two months.
Donald Trump will meanwhile today visit Eagle Pass, Texas, a much smaller city than Brownsville hundreds of miles to its north-west.
The Associated Press has a rundown of how the situation in the two regions’ differ. The biggest takeaway: Biden is visiting an area where border crossings have recently dropped, while Trump will appear in an area where they have surged, and the relatively smaller community has had trouble coping with the new arrivals.
Here’s more:
The Rio Grande Valley, which includes Brownsville, gives Biden a platform where illegal crossings have dropped sharply. It was the busiest corridor for illegal crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico for nine years until Del Rio, which includes Eagle Pass, overtook it in the 2022 budget year.
Del Rio was the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors last year as well, but Tucson, Arizona, began taking the top spot last summer.
Arrests for illegal crossings topped 2 million for the first time in each of the government’s last two budget years, more than double Trump’s peak year of just under 1 million in 2019. But Rio Grande Valley has turned into an exception during recent months as traffic has shifted to Arizona and California for a host of reasons.
The Rio Grande Valley’s 7,340 border arrests in January were its lowest since June 2020, down 90% from more than 81,000 in July 2021, early in Biden’s presidency.
Del Rio has gone the opposite direction, exemplified by the arrival of about 16,000 predominantly Haitian migrants in the border town of Del Rio in September 2021. Eagle Pass, an hour’s drive from Del Rio, was relatively quiet during Trump’s presidency (and before) but became a hot spot under Biden. The Del Rio sector tallied more than 71,000 arrests in December, more than the entire 2019 budget year.
Updated
Biden to press for passage of immigration bill in Texas border visit
Joe Biden will arrive in Brownsville, Texas, at about 2.30pm ET, and is scheduled to received briefings from federal agents at the border, and then give a speech at 4.30pm.
Ahead of his visit, the White House released a memo arguing for passage of a bipartisan Senate compromise announced earlier this month that would have tightened immigration policy, and also sent military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Republicans ultimately stopped passage of the bill, which the Biden administration is quick to note in its memo:
President Biden has repeatedly said he is willing to work in a bipartisan way to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system. Over several months, his Administration negotiated with a bipartisan group of Senators to release a bill that includes the toughest and fairest reforms to secure the border we have had in decades. It would make our country safer, make our border more secure, and treat people fairly and humanely while preserving legal immigration, consistent with our nation’s values. The bill received support from the Border Patrol Union, the Chamber of Commerce, the South Texas Alliance of Cities, and the Wall Street Journal – but Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans have decided to play politics at the expense of border security.
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Biden, Trump head to US-Mexico border with immigration top issue in 2024 race
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both be in Texas today to visit the US border with Mexico, amid public frustration over undocumented migrants crossing into the country. The visits by the current and former president come after a bargain to implement hardline policies meant to keep migrants out coupled with new military aid to Ukraine and Israel fell apart in Congress, leaving the fate of these national security priorities uncertain. Yet all signs point to continued public anxiety about the state of the southern border – this week, Gallup released polling that showed immigration was the top problem on the public’s mind.
Trump has long promised to implement draconian policies against undocumented migrants, and did so during his presidency. Biden, meanwhile, promised a more humane approach, but struggled to deal with a surge in border crossings that began after he took office, and the Republican attacks that accompanied them. We’ll keep an eye out for what the two men may say when they arrive in Texas. The president gets there this afternoon.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, will discuss the secrecy around his hospitalization during an appearance before the House armed services committee beginning at 10am ET.
The race to replace Mitch McConnell as the Senate’s top Republican will start heating up after he yesterday announced plans to step down. Reports say Trump’s allies would like a rightwing alternative to the three senators thought to be in the running – all of whom are named John.
The government probably will not shut down, after congressional leaders released a deal on funding yesterday. This afternoon, the House will vote on a short-term measure to keep the money flowing, while passage of the broader funding compromise is expected in the near future.
