Trump to call for border agent hiring spree with new pay hikes

María Paula Mijares Torres and Stephanie Lai, Bloomberg News on Oct 13, 2024

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Republican nominee Donald Trump plans to call for raises and bonuses for border agents in an attempt to recruit 10,000 new people to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a senior campaign adviser.

Trump will call on Congress to pass a 10% pay increase for border patrol agents and approve $10,000 retention and signing bonuses, according to the adviser, who requested anonymity to detail the plans the Republican nominee will formally announce later Sunday.

Trump is scheduled to speak in Arizona Sunday afternoon in a bid to sharpen his border security pitch as he courts voters in swing state that President Joe Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes four years ago.

Immigration remains a top concern among the state’s voters. Trump has pledged to finish building a border wall and conduct mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

Arizona opened early voting on Oct. 9, kicking off the 2024 choice in a closely contested state that was central to Trump’s false claims of election tampering after the last election. Trump has a 1 percentage point lead in Arizona over Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.

Harris, meanwhile, has assailed Trump for his role in killing a bipartisan immigration bill that would have addressed the border crisis, and has said she would sign it into law if it came to her desk. She has said she’d strengthen border security and boost prosecutions of repeat offenders while also providing legal pathways to citizenship for migrants already in the U.S.

Trump’s Arizona stop caps his latest tour of western states, which included an unusual trip to Coachella in heavily Democratic California and a roundtable in Las Vegas to meet Latino supporters, including Goya Foods Inc. Chief Executive Officer Robert Unanue.

Harris visited Arizona last week for a rally and a visit with Republicans who don’t support Trump. She pledged to create a bipartisan policy advice council if she’s elected, part of efforts to broaden the Democratic ticket’s appeal among independents and Republicans wary of the former president.

With Trump and Harris vying for Latino votes, Harris defended her record on immigration and health care at a Univision town hall on Oct. 10. Univision also is airing a town hall with Trump on Oct. 16.

Latinos have grown at the second-fastest rate of any major racial and ethnic group in the U..S electorate since the 2020 presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center survey, which also found an estimated 36.2 million are eligible to vote this year, up from 32.3 million in 2020.

A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll concluded that Harris has the edge among likely Latino voters in Nevada and Arizona, though Trump led among Latino men under age 50.

Arizona’s number of eligible Latino voters has more than doubled since 2000 to an estimated 1.3 million, and they now make up a quarter of the state’s electorate. They also skew significantly younger than the average Arizona voter.