Biden and Abbott Twist Their Border Narratives

President Joe Biden, who recently made his first visit as president to the southern border, and Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who greeted Biden in Texas, offered competing versions of who’s to blame for a spike in illegal immigration. But both twisted some facts to fit their partisan narratives.

In remarks prior to his trip to his Jan. 8 trip to El Paso, Texas, Biden said that on his first day in office he proposed a comprehensive plan to “overhaul … a broken immigration system” but that “congressional Republicans have refused to consider” his plan. Republicans opposed his plan, but the bill never came up for a vote because it also did not appear to have enough support among Democrats.

In a letter he hand-delivered to Biden, Abbott claimed, “Under President [Donald] Trump, the federal government achieved historically low levels of illegal immigration,” and “by contrast, America is suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country” under Biden. Apprehensions of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally have soared in