Trump headed to Texas border to assail Biden immigration policies

Former president Donald Trump will visit the U.S.-Mexico border here Wednesday, joining Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and a group of congressional Republicans for a trip that will fuel Trump's attacks on the Biden administration over its immigration policies.

The trip is part of the former president’s efforts to ramp up his political activity ahead of the 2022 midterms, where he is looking to settle scores against political opponents and position himself for a potential run for president in 2024.

The border visit in particular offers Trump the opportunity to attack President Biden and Democrats on immigration, an issue the former president has made a centerpiece of his political identity and one that Republicans view as a weakness for Democrats.

“Illegal aliens are overrunning their borders,” Trump said at a rally in Wellington, Ohio, on Saturday. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Our poor borders — they were so perfect. They were so good.”

Vice President Harris talks to the media after her tour of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Central Processing Center in El Paso on June 25. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

The trip also comes as Trump’s attorneys are battling to prevent prosecutors in Manhattan from pursuing criminal charges against his company over its business dealings, a prospect that he and his allies have portrayed as politically motivated.

Trump arrives in the Rio Grande Valley five days after Vice President Harris visited the border on the other side of the state. Republicans spent weeks criticizing Harris for not traveling to the border after being tasked with working to address the root causes of migration, and Trump has been eager to join the chorus in taunting Harris.

“Kamala Harris, your vice president, only went to the border yesterday for the one simple reason: that I announced that I was going,” Trump said at his Saturday rally. “If I didn’t do that, I don’t know if she was ever going to go.”