Donald Trump landed at the border on Thursday ahead of his rival President Joe Biden as they prepared for competing events on dealing with immigration, which voters now believe is the biggest crisis facing America.

Trump arrived at the Del Rio International Airport near Eagle Pass, Texas, the city which has been dubbed ‘ground zero’ for the chaotic border situation.

The 77-year-old Republican frontrunner, wearing a suit and his custom red tie, briefly spoke to reporters and said: ‘It’s good weather. Beautiful day but a very dangerous border. We’re going to take care of it.’

He then got into a SUV to travel to the ‘epicenter’ of the migrant surge that has seen record-breaking crossings. 

In a piece for DailyMail.com ahead of the trip, Trump wrote how Biden ‘created the illegal migrant invasion’ and stated that he was the only candidate who could stop it. 

Biden is heading to Brownsville, a city 324 miles away where migrant crossings have dropped because of the increase in fencing and concertina wire.

Several hundred yards along the Rio Grande, on the opposite side, around a dozen Mexicans stood watching for a glimpse of the former president.

They stood on a raised road above a brightly colored mural, and leaning over a railing to see.

Later, he was due to visit an area of land where shipping containers and razor wire have been erected to hold back a surge of illegal migrants that reached over 1,000 a day in December.

At a nearby boat ramp the body of a drowned migrant was brought ashore yesterday.

Meanwhile, Biden was landing in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, 325 miles to the east.

Biden, 81, has been accused of using the trip as a ‘photo op’ for his campaign and is visiting an area where migrant crossings have dropped substantially. 

DailyMail.com visited the area Biden will tour, and found piles of trash being patrolled by bored border guards.

The border visits came as immigration explodes to become the biggest issue in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

A Gallup poll found 28 percent of Americans now believe immigration is the biggest problem facing America, more than cite the economy or inflation..

The figure was a record high since Gallup began polling voters on their views about immigration in 1981.

Earlier, Trump, 77, accused Biden of allowing a ‘horrible invasion’ of the United States and said ‘migrant crime is taking over America’.

He also vowed to carry out the ‘largest domestic deportation operation in American history’ if re-elected.

Public concern about illegal immigration is higher under Biden’s presidency than it was under the last two administrations.

In the latest Gallup poll the percentage of Americans citing immigration as the biggest problem was up eight points from last month. 

Other leading issues were the ‘government’ on 20 percent, the economy on 12 percent and inflation on 11 percent.

The 28 percent of voters citing immigration surpassed the previous record of 27 percent in a Gallup poll in July 2019 when there was a surge at the border.

In Texas, Trump is set to highlight the case of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.

She was found dead last week after she didn’t return from a morning run in a wooded area.

Jose Ibarra, 26, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, who crossed into the United States in 2022, has been charged with murder.

On the eve of his border visit Trump said: ‘This monster should never have been allowed into our country.

‘He was released at Crooked Joe’s orders and set loose into our country.

‘How many more innocent victims must be harmed? How much more innocent blood must be spilled until we stop this horrible, horrible invasion and remove these illegal alien criminals from our country?’

A majority of Americans now support a border wall of the kind Trump proposed in 2016 and started building during his presidency, according to a new survey by Monmouth University.

The Del Rio sector of the border, which includes Eagle Pass, was the busiest area for illegal crossings in 2022 and 2023.

Across the whole border U.S. Border Patrol had nearly 250,000 encounters with migrants in December 2023.

That was the highest monthly total ever by some distance.

In the Del Rio sector there were more than 71,000 arrests in December.

Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass, a city of 30,000 people, is a Democratic stronghold, but Republicans are gaining.

In the 2020 election Trump narrowed the gap to less than 10 points.

In January, Texas, Governor Greg Abbott took military control of a 47-acre area of Eagle Pass called Shelby Park.

He installed razor wire and shipping container barriers in the park which runs along the Rio Grande.

Biden in turn sued Texas, insisting that border control has always fallen under federal jurisdiction.

Abbott also intends to spend nearly $200 million building an 80-acre “base camp” in Eagle Pass for National Guard troops.

It will house up to 2,300 members of the Texas National Guard and be close to both Shelby Park and the Eagle Pass National Bridge which connects to Mexico.

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