Trump Attacks Biden as Soft on Immigration in Arizona Speech

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump portrayed Joe Biden as soft on illegal immigration in a speech Tuesday afternoon near the southern U.S. border, reprising a central theme of his 2016 campaign.

Biden’s immigration plan is “the most radical, extreme, reckless, dangerous and deadly immigration plan ever put forward by a major party candidate,” Trump said during his visit to Yuma, Arizona.

Trump is raising the issue again as he trails Biden in national polls and in surveys of voters in key states. The president said Biden’s immigration approach would displace American workers and make communities less safe.

Trump also accepted the endorsement of the National Border Patrol Council, an organization that represents agents and border staff.

“The Biden plan would unleash a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen,” Trump said.

Biden campaign officials didn’t immediately return a message left for comment.

Reversing Trump Policies

Biden wants to immediately reverse Trump’s asylum policies aimed at dramatically restricting migrants seeking humanitarian protection in the U.S. He also advocates cutting off Defense Department money being used to pay for border wall construction.

Biden has said he plans to eliminate for-profit immigration detention centers and assure that the conditions at facilities holding asylum seekers are held to high standards. The centers have come under scrutiny over providing inadequate shelter, health care and nutrition.

Biden supports increasing the number of visas for permanent, employment based-immigration and has called for revamping the visa program for temporary workers to better accommodate them and employers.

Trump attacked Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, by linking her to so-called sanctuary cities during her time as a San Francisco district attorney and as California’s attorney general.

Arizona Polls

Immigration is a key issue in Arizona. Trump won the state in 2016, but according to a RealClear Politics compilation of polls, he currently trails Biden by an average of 2 percentage points.

Biden has drawn criticism from immigration-rights activists over his defense of Obama administration policies, which led to the deportation of 3 million people.

Yet Biden has won their praise for saying he’d take immediate action to protect Dreamers -- young adults who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children -- and their families by reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that includes a path to citizenship.

Last month, the administration said it will allow certain young, undocumented immigrants to renew deportation protections for one year as Trump’s administration reviews a Supreme Court decision that blocked his efforts to end the DACA program.

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