Trump and Biden collide in split-screen trips to the border with immigration in the spotlight

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to visit the southern border Thursday in what’s expected to be a dramatic split-screen moment as the 2024 presidential campaign ramps up over an issue that has confounded administrations of both parties for decades: immigration.

It’s Biden’s second trip to the border since he took office. His first was to El Paso in January 2023. This time, he’s set to visit Brownsville, a border town in the Rio Grande Valley that has long felt the impacts of migration up close.

“He wanted to show that it was important for him to go down there, to hear from Border Patrol agents, to hear from first responders,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing Wednesday. Biden will also deliver remarks to urge congressional Republicans to pass more border security funding, a White House official said.

Still, critics of the administration point out that Biden is visiting Brownsville at a time when the direst consequences of the migrant influx have shifted elsewhere. According to Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that includes the Border Patrol, many more immigrants are now crossing at other parts of the border, such as Arizona and Eagle Pass, Texas.

Eagle Pass is where Trump is expected to visit. He has visited the border many times before — and he announced his trip before the White House did. Biden said this week that he’d been planning to go but that he didn’t know “his good friend” would be there the same day. Two senior administration officials said the timing of the trip was meant to maximize its political impact a week before the State of the Union address. One of the officials said “we welcome the split