United States: the electoral battle on immigration is launched
It has become a major issue in the presidential campaign in the United States.
As in every election, the two main candidates clash on the migration issue.
Thursday, February 29, Joe Biden, the outgoing Democratic president, and Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, are going to Texas, but not to the same crossing point, to discuss the crisis at the border.
A crisis of which our special correspondents had a glimpse in Yuma County, in southern Arizona, near the Mexican border.
A volunteer places water at the foot of the barrier built under Donald Trump in Arizona.
© Aabla Jounaïdi/RFI
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With our special correspondents in Arizona
,
Aabla Jounaïdi
and
Julien Boileau
In Yuma County, the number of people apprehended by Border Patrol is down from last year.
But every day, new migrants, asylum seekers or not, cross the border illegally.
Fernando Quiroz, member of a coalition of local NGOs, brings them food and drink.
We walk with him along
the barrier built under Donald Trump
: “
But look where we are!
Look at the numbers we have.
It's not Joe Biden's fault.
The world knows chaos, war, poverty, corruption.
With all this, people are trying to leave.
They come, despite this wall.
This wall for which the Trump administration spent God knows how much.
Did he stop people from coming?
No !
»
Also read: United States: in Arizona, can Joe Biden still count on the Latino vote?
Joe Biden
is trying, in Texas, to regain control of the discourse on immigration.
A speech which is monopolized by
the Republican camp
, which criticizes the current American president.
In Arizona, former Republican Party official Jonathan Lines quips that part of the border fence adjoining agricultural Yuma County was erected under President Biden: “
More than 700,000 people have crossed the border here since Biden took office.
What do we do with 700,000 people?
I've spoken to Democratic mayors and members of Congress.
One of them, Senator Kelly, helped me finish the wall right here.
All this is thanks to Biden, even though the president said he would not add another meter to Trump's wall.
But we managed to close this area to people who entered directly into the city, into people's houses, and also onto agricultural land.
This is a question of food security and national security.
»
But the border is far from airtight in Arizona.
Several hundred meters are devoid of barriers, because they run along an inviolable Indian reservation.
The situation politically benefits the Republican camp.
But what we were able to see on site is that it also benefits Mexican criminal networks, whose prey are first and foremost migrants and their families.
Also listen On the road to the American presidential election
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