Blame game: Biden, Trump and the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border

More than 7.2 million migrants have illegally crossed the southern US border under Joe Biden, and Eagle Pass is the epicentre of this election-altering crisis. Watch the video.

There is no bigger issue for American voters than immigration. And there is no better place to understand why than in Eagle Pass, a Texas town on the US-Mexico border.

Under President Joe Biden, 7.2 million migrants have illegally crossed the southern border, a record-breaking surge that peaked in December when up to 6000 people a day waded across the Rio Grande and scrambled into Eagle Pass.

Lifelong residents of the town – home to 28,000 people – are used to migrants making the treacherous trip in search of a better life in the US.

But they have never seen them arrive in such numbers, making Eagle Pass the epicentre of a crisis that may well decide whether former president Donald Trump can defeat Biden in this year’s election.

Illegal migrants flooding into Eagle Pass in December. Picture: John Moore (Getty Images)

The bitter rivals agree the border is broken.

While they squabble over how to fix it, however, those on the front line fume about the chaos that has put their community under a harsh national spotlight and sparked fears for their safety.

“There’s been a big old target on Eagle Pass,” third-generation resident Jessie Fuentes says, “and it’s been kind of crazy.”

Jose Aranda, a former town mayor and county judge, says the porous border is “part of everyday life”.

He grew up 200 metres from the river where migrants ran past his house. These days, they occasionally appear in his backyard.

Former Eagle Pass mayor Jose Aranda. Picture: Sergio Flores

“We have a callus in our community towards it,” Aranda says.

But that callus is softening as Eagle Pass struggles to manage unprecedented waves of unauthorised arrivals. Residents want a solution, although in what is historically a Democratic stronghold, they are increasingly divided over what that should be.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has seized control of the Eagle Pass waterfront from federal authorities, deploying gun-toting state soldiers to patrol razor wire barriers and shipping containers along the river.

At the same time, Biden’s officials have convinced Mexican authorities to strictly enforce their own laws, sparking the deportation of migrants before they cross the US border.

The fortification of the border on the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass. Picture: Sergio Flores

“Overnight, it was like someone turned off a light switch or closed the water tap,” says Amerika Garcia Grewal from the Eagle Pass Border Coalition, who credits the diplomacy.

Trump was briefed by Texas troops in Eagle Pass last month that average daily migrant arrivals had fallen to 18 in January and eight in February. He declared victory for Abbott’s “military operation” to fight an “invasion”.

Locals disagree. Aranda says it’s an “expensive political stunt”, Garcia Grewal calls it a “giant waste of money”, and Fuentes believes it’s “out of control”.

They laugh about a Daily Show skit suggesting the only people invading Eagle Pass are law enforcement officers and politicians, although Aranda – who runs a real estate agency – says that has at least delivered “a very good economic boost” to an otherwise poor area.

Even Trump supporter Rosa Arellano prefers it “to be handled by the federal government”.

Former Customs and Border Protection officer Rosa Arellano. Picture: Sergio Flores

Biden’s administration repeatedly denied there was a crisis until the President admitted in January: “We all know the border’s been broken. It’s long past time to fix it.”

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators negotiated what was considered the toughest border overhaul in decades, only for Trump to blow it up because he said it would be a political “gift” to Biden.

That has infuriated Eagle Pass residents, even if few think the laws are perfect.

Local Democratic Party chair Juanita Martinez opposes “extreme” measures to restrict asylum but supports funding extra federal personnel to patrol the border and process migration claims, which can currently take more than a decade.

Maverick County Democratic Party chair Juanita Martinez. Picture: Sergio Flores

Aranda also wants more manpower. During migrant surges, federal agencies have redeployed staff from the bridges connecting Eagle Pass to Piedras Negras, cutting off businesses from customers who legally cross from Mexico.

The bridge closures also disrupt a key trade route. One of the world’s biggest breweries is just over the border, supplying $US3.5bn ($A5.3bn) worth of Corona and Modelo to Americans.

Garcia Grewal wants politicians to “run on a solution … instead of running on fear”.

She calls for more legal migration pathways as global forced displacement is at an all-time high, with 110 million people fleeing persecution, conflict and violence.

While migrants are now mostly entering the US through Arizona and California, some are still desperately trying to bypass Eagle Pass’s militarised borders in search of work.

A group of migrants with appointments with Customs and Border Protection wait to be processed on a bridge into Eagle Pass. Picture: Sergio Flores

“They have to live, they have to survive,” Garcia Grewal says.

Arellano, a former Customs and Border Protection officer, acknowledges Eagle Pass is “always going to have illegal aliens coming in”.

But she says she no longer feels safe, and that her family now keeps guns at home.

Aranda is more concerned about someone deciding “they want to stop the invasion, and he doesn’t know the difference between who lives here and who’s coming over”. Last month, the FBI arrested a Tennessee man who was planning to travel to Eagle Pass to kill migrants.

The former mayor acknowledges, however, that the crisis is shifting the town’s politics.

A migrant attempting to cross the Rio Grande is intercepted by Texas National Guard personnel. Picture: Sergio Flores

For a century, Democratic presidential candidates have convincingly won Maverick County, which covers Eagle Pass. But after 20 per cent of voters backed Trump in 2016, that rose to 45 per cent in 2020. This year, Aranda predicts, “it’s going to go red”.

Arellano is among the lifelong Democrats switching sides and supporting Trump.

Martinez can’t understand how the residents of Eagle Pass – 96 per cent of whom are Hispanic or Latino – could vote for “the most racist, horrible person on this Earth”.

People walk through downtown Eagle Pass. Picture: Sergio Flores

Trump, despite or perhaps because of his harsh rhetoric, holds the upper hand on the issue ranked as the top problem facing the US, ahead of governance and inflation. A record 55 per cent of Americans told a Gallup poll last month that illegal immigration was a critical threat.

Aranda says Trump is using Eagle Pass as a campaign “stage”.

Nevertheless, the unwanted national attention has made one thing clear among locals: the border needs to be fixed.

‘BLAME IT ON ME’: WHY TRUMP BLEW UP BORDER SOLUTION

Migration is driven by push and pull factors.

Joe Biden would like Americans to believe the record surge under his presidency is all because of the former, not the latter.

US President Joe Biden visiting the US-Mexico border last month. Picture: Jim Watson (AFP)

He’s not totally wrong. Venezuela, for instance, is in the midst of one of the biggest displacement crises in the world, with 7.7 million people fleeing violence and poverty.

But voters will not forget Biden’s rhetoric and actions that have stoked the border crisis.

As a candidate, he said that if he defeated Donald Trump in 2020, migrants should “immediately surge to the border” and that the US could take millions more “in a heartbeat”.

Then, on his first day in office, Biden halted construction of Trump’s border wall, paused deportations, and suspended a program that made migrants wait in Mexico while their asylum claims were adjudicated.

Former US president Donald Trump has made the border the top issue in his re-election campaign. Picture: Joe Raedle (Getty Images)

It is no surprise that millions of people believed the US-Mexico border was wide open, nor that Republicans responded by impeaching Biden’s Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the first such action against a sitting Cabinet member in history.

Trump, who is favoured to beat Biden in an extraordinary rematch this year, has made this his top issue. He promises to be a dictator on “day one” of his second term so he can shut the border and kickstart “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”.

While Trump rants that illegal migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, even Latino voters are ditching Biden for him. They will decide swing states like Arizona and Nevada.

Migrants waiting to surrender to Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas last year. Picture: Patrick Fallon (AFP)

Faced with this reality, Biden has tried to turn the tables by negotiating a bipartisan bill that represents the most comprehensive border reform in decades. His opponent’s response – to convince Republicans to block it while telling Democrats to “please blame it on me” – has given him an opening to fight back. Is Trump serious about fixing the problem or not?

As even Republicans have pointed out, millions of migrants also crossed the border under the former president, who unsuccessfully asked Congress for new legislation to stop them.

It underscores the hypocrisy of Trump to suggest Biden can fix the problem by repeating his executive actions. The President is nevertheless considering trying – a move that would infuriate his progressive supporters – because he knows he is politically vulnerable.

At least both of them admit there is a problem. Just don’t expect them to agree on a solution.

Originally published as Blame game: Biden, Trump and the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border