Former President Donald Trump, the runaway front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, blasted President Joe Biden on Thursday for the "out of control" southern border and said the U.S. is "being extorted by Mexico and other countries."
Trump's Truth Social post came as a caravan of roughly 8,000 migrants makes its way to the U.S. border and a day after Biden sent a delegation to Mexico to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City about the border crisis.
"Our border is out of control like no border in history, from any country, has ever been," Trump wrote. "We are being extorted by Mexico and other countries, when it should be the other way around. We truly are a nation in decline, a failing nation, with leadership that is not respected and doesn't have a clue….and just 3 years ago, we had the strongest and safest border in our history, by far."
Trump's extortion claim comes after Lopez Obrador said the U.S. should ease sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela and offer more support to Latin America countries instead of putting up "barriers, barbed wire fences on the river or thinking about building walls." Mexico also put pressure on the U.S. on Wednesday to reopen border railway crossings that were temporarily shut over the massive surge of crossings.
"The importance of reopening the border crossings is a priority for us," said Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena Ibarra.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is "committed" to working with Mexico to solve a problem that Republicans say Biden's camp created. Blinken was part of the delegation that included Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.
"As we made clear in Mexico City today, we are committed to partnering with Mexico to address our shared challenges, including managing unprecedented irregular migration in the region, reopening key ports of entry, and combating illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs," Blinken posted.
Congressional Republicans have tied aid for Israel and Ukraine to immediate border policy changes from the Biden administration. CBP statistics show that more than 240,000 migrants were encountered each of the past three months. Officials said encounters in December already have surpassed 200,000.
Republicans want to return to the Trump-era policy of "Remain in Mexico" rather than having migrants await asylum hearings in the U.S.
Also, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a letter to Biden last week urging him to take executive action to stem the flow of migrants. Instead, Biden sent the delegation.
"This is a very dangerous situation that could be solved tomorrow if we had the proper policy, but we can't get this administration to do what's right by the American people," president of the National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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