Donald Trump’s “telling it like it is” strong stance on immigration seems to be resonating beyond his base, which can spell big trouble for Joe Biden in November.
The former president’s fiery rhetoric about the crisis at the US southern border has never failed to ignite his base. However, new polling suggests that voters beyond his base, and even some democrats, agree with his view of the dangerous threat posed by the open border policies of the Biden administration.
The AP is reporting that roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March.
A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.
Even people on the left say that Biden’s border policies are a recipe for disaster.
“They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” said Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based social justice activist. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”
Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people, and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.
Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an invasion” that had changed the town.
“We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.
Hesles’ words echo Trump’s own. The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim that Biden is engaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”