Mayorkas asserts that the Biden administration has expelled more migrants than the Trump administration

EFE

The United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated this Sunday that in the last three years, the Joe Biden administration has "returned or expelled" more illegal migrants than in the four years of the previous Donald Trump administration.

The U.S. president's immigration chief pointed out in an interview with CNN that since last May, the United States has expelled "more people than in any year since 2015."

However, the magnitude of the migration crisis at the southern border of the United States has resulted in the arrival of more than 2.2 million migrants in 2023.

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A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) survey published this Sunday indicates that an increasing number of U.S. voters are focusing their attention on migration, a dangerous issue for President Biden, who is seeking re-election.

Around 20% of those surveyed by the newspaper cited migration as the most important issue for their vote in this year's presidential elections. The second issue is the economy.

Both Biden and his predecessor and possible rival in the November elections traveled this Thursday to the southern border of the United States, to indicate that migration is a central axis of their respective campaigns.

During his speech in the city of Brownsville, which borders Matamoros, Biden insisted on the need to pass a controversial bipartisan bill that includes restrictions on the right to asylum at the border in exchange for Republican support to continue financing Ukraine and Israel in their defense against Russia and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

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Meanwhile, the former Republican president reiterated his usual xenophobic comments about migrants, asserting that they are "terrorists" and that they come from "prisons and mental institutions."

"They are being allowed to enter our country. And that's horrible," said Trump, branding Biden as "probably the most incompetent president in history" and trying to link the increase in border crossings with crime in the country.

"When someone broke the law, we caught them and deported them. We did a great job. Then there was an election (...) and from that moment on a lot of bad things started to happen. The situation changed in Texas and everywhere," the Republican maintained.