President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump made dueling visits to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, with Mr. Biden challenging his predecessor to “join me” in securing the country’s southern frontier and Mr. Trump blaming the president for lawlessness at the border.
The remarks came at a moment of political peril for Mr. Biden, who has faced criticism from both parties as the number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels, with migrant encounters more than double than in the Trump years.
In appearances some 300 miles apart in Texas, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump tried to leverage what is likely to become the most volatile policy dispute of the 2024 campaign.
The president called on his predecessor to help pass a bipartisan bill in Congress that would significantly crack down on border crossings. Republicans, at Mr. Trump’s urging, torpedoed the bill — legislation that they themselves had demanded — saying it wasn’t strong enough.
“Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me,” Mr. Biden said in Brownsville, a border city in the Rio Grande Valley.