A group of House Republicans are planning to join former President Donald Trump on his visit to the southern border next week, Politico reported.
Members of the House's largest GOP caucus, the Republican Study Committee, plan to join Trump at the border, Politico said Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., RSC chair, confirmed to Politico that the lawmaker would be among about a dozen committee members making the trip next Wednesday. Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, also will take part.
"President Trump spent four years fixing the border. But the Biden administration broke it again, and we are now experiencing the worst border crisis in our history," Banks said in a statement.
"That’s why the RSC has made carrying on the Trump legacy on immigration our top priority this Congress and why we are heading to the border with President Trump to explain how we can end this national embarrassment."
The trip to the border will be the second meeting between Trump and RSC members this month. Leaders of the caucus previously met with the former president at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Politico said.
Immigration is an issue Republicans see as one on which they can sway voters as the Biden administration struggles to get a handle on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Multiple groups of House Republicans already have traveled to the border to draw attention to the crisis.
An immigration framework, in which the RSC played a key role in shaping, has been shared with House GOP leadership. Banks described it as "guardrails for any future immigration deal."
Last week, Trump said he had accepted Abbott’s invitation to visit the border.
The trip is aimed at calling attention to Trump having left the Biden administration with a highly secure border, only to have strong policies reversed and progress on controlling immigration undone.
"It's an unmitigated disaster zone," Trump said in a release.
Abbott has been one of Trump's biggest supporters. He recently announced $1 billion was put in the state budget to strengthen border security, and added Texas would construct its own border wall.
At a border summit earlier this month, Abbott issued a disaster declaration that will include potentially arresting anyone illegally entering the state of Texas.
"It will help all of us to work on ways to stem the flow of unlawful immigration and to stem the flow of illegal contraband," Abbott said at the summit, The Texas Tribune reported.
"They don't want to come to across the state of Texas anymore because it's not what they were expecting," Abbott added at the conference. "It's not the red carpet that the federal administration rolled out to them."
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