
On Thursday, former President Donald Trump went on a tour of the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, and told officials and law enforcement agents there that his successor, President Joe Biden is “destroying our country
Officials showing the former president around the border sector at Eagle Pass told him they could not believe what is happening at the border as record numbers of illegal immigrants continue to gain unlawful entry to the U.S. Border Patrol officers testified to Congress last year that migrants are turning themselves into authorities, expecting to be allowed into the country.
🚨Trump meets with Texas National Guard during Eagle Pass, TX border visit
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 29, 2024
“What [Biden has] done to our country is he’s destroying our country,” Trump said while speaking with border officials. “We were just talking before, the general was saying, he can’t believe what’s happening. They can’t believe it’s so sad.”
Trump listed several crime statistics connected to illegal immigration: “Last year, almost half of all ICE arrests were criminal aliens charged for more than 33,000 assaults, 3,000 robberies, 6,900 burglaries, 7,500 weapons crimes. This is all migrant crime, 4,300 sex crimes, 1,600 kidnappings, and 1,700 homicides and murders.”
President Trump, live form Eagle Pass, TX confirms he’s spoken to the parents of Laken Riley. pic.twitter.com/eBSvSgefZu
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 29, 2024
“These are the people that are coming into our country and they’re coming from jails and they’re coming from prisons and they’re coming from mental institutions and they’re coming from insane asylums and they’re terrorists,” Trump said.
The border crisis has become so alarming for voters that it could swing the 2024 election in favor of Trump, who leads the Republican primary and consistently defeats Biden in head-to-head public opinion polls of registered voters.
52-year-old Asalia Casares was a Democrat for her entire life. She voted for Biden in 2020. But like many in Maverick County near the U.S.-Mexico border, she worries about the border crisis.
Casares says she will probably vote for Trump: “If it’s Biden and Trump, that’s a little bit tough because I am a Democrat, but I don’t like what we’re living [through]. I don’t like what’s happening in our borders. I would probably say, Trump.”