Biden has made two moves recently that reflect this balancing act, imposing limits on asylum seekers and clearing a path to citizenship for undocumented spouses of American citizens.

For the third month in a row, respondents to an April Gallup poll cited immigration as the most important problem facing the United States. A recent Washington Post-Schar School of Policy and Government poll of swing state voters found that just 42% of respondents said immigrants who are in the country illegally should be deported. Nearly 60% said they should be offered the chance to apply for legal status.

Still, Trump's handling of immigration is preferred to Biden's, 52% to 26%, according to the same poll.

During the debate, Trump is likely to bring up serious crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants.

In one instance, two men from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally earlier this year were charged in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl in Houston. "We have a new Biden Migrant Killing — It's only going to get worse, and it's all Crooked Joe Biden's fault," Trump said on Truth Social.

But immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S., studies show. The Times reported earlier this year that Trump was fundraising with Thomas Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who helped implement the widely derided family separation policy.

In response, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, "Biden's reversal of President Trump's immigration policies has created an unprecedented and illegal immigration, humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern border."

Leavitt said that if Trump returns to the Oval Office, "he will restore all of his prior policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shock waves to all the world's criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history."

In recent weeks Trump has appeared to modulate, saying on a podcast that immigrants who graduate from American colleges should get a green card. The comments prompted fierce pushback from his allies.

His spokesperson then clarified that not all graduates would be getting green cards, saying it "would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers."

...continued

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.