Former President Donald Trump has criticized President Joe Biden over his border policies in a series of posts on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.
Immigration has emerged as a major issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election. As part of the current fiscal year that began in October, there were 309,114 migrant encounters that month, 308,669 in November and 371,036 in December. In December, about 300,000 migrants—nearly 10,000 per day—came into the United States through Mexico, including about 250,000 between ports of entry, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. Federal border agents encountered about 2.5 million migrants in total last year, surpassing the previous record high from the year before.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill intended to bolster border security by providing tougher immigration enforcement and allowing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to temporarily shut down the border during surges of crossing attempts failed in Congress earlier this year because it lacked GOP support. Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential race, has repeatedly pledged to secure the border if he's reelected in November.
Stepping up his attacks against Biden who is also seeking reelection this year, Trump wrote in one social media post on Saturday: "Four years ago we had the strongest and safest Border in U.S. history. Now we have the worst Border anywhere in the World, EVER!!! OUR BORDERS HAVE COMPLETELY COLLAPSED, AND MANY CRIMINALS ARE POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY. MAGA2024!"
In other posts on the platform, the former president posted a series of videos purporting to show migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, with clips of Biden edited in making statements in support of them. Trump captioned his posts: "Biden's invasion" and "Crooked Joe Biden's invasion."
He also posted an attack video claiming Biden and the Democrats are allowing migrants into the country and supporting them with welfare on purpose to garner their votes in this year's election. There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants are being registered to vote in any U.S. election.
Newsweek contacted Biden's campaign by email to comment on this story.
Trump's social media flurry comes after seven dead bodies were found near the southern border. Prosecutors in the Mexican border state of Sonora said the bodies were discovered just off a road near the town of Puerto Peñasco, on the Gulf of California, about 60 miles south of the border with Arizona, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The victims were all men wearing military-style gear and had all been shot to death.
Meanwhile, videos taken Thursday on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, showed a throng of migrants, described by on-scene reporters as hundreds of individuals of different nationalities, causing a "riot" and using force to try to overpower the Texas National Guard.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, described the videos as "chilling."
"This is the result of the Biden Administration refusing to secure our border and protect America," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Amid growing concerns about border security, a Newsweek analysis of federal procurement data has revealed that the DHS more than doubled its spending on dog providers in the first six weeks of the year compared with the amount it spent in a similar period in 2023, and a government spokesperson confirmed it was increasing the number of canines it will use this year.
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Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and ... Read more
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