BROWNSVILLE, Texas – President Joe Biden was in the Rio Grande Valley on Thursday to meet border agents and discuss the need for bipartisan legislation.
Biden spoke at the Border Patrol Brownsville Station.
KSAT has a crew in Brownsville, and the live stream of the president’s remarks will be seen below in this article.
WATCH BELOW: Brownsville residents react to President Biden’s visit
This marks Biden’s second visit to the U.S. border as president. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas will travel to Brownsville with the president.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg plans to meet with Biden to discuss the influx of migrants who travel to San Antonio for help. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar was invited to meet with Biden but declined due to a scheduling conflict, according to BCSO.
Also on Thursday, former President Donald Trump will head to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, about 325 miles away from Brownsville. The city is another hotspot in the state-federal clash over border security.
WATCH BELOW: President Joe Biden speaks during his visit to Brownsville
Illegal crossings on the U.S. border have been rising for years because of complicated reasons that include climate change, war and unrest in other nations, the economy, and cartels that see migration as a cash cow.
The numbers of migrants flowing to the U.S-Mexico border have far outpaced the capacity of an immigration system that has not been substantially updated in decades. Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January, but there were record highs in December.
Trump’s campaign called Biden’s plan to visit the border a sign that the president is on the defensive over immigration and said the issue is a problem for his reelection effort. Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Biden was chasing Trump and is responsible for the “worst immigration crisis in history.”
Biden’s camp says it’s House Republicans who are on the defensive after Trump flatly said he told GOP legislators to tank the bill that would have funded border agents and other Homeland Security authorities.