Biden, Trump Set For Rival US-Mexico Border Visits

US President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will pay dueling visits to the US-Mexico border Thursday as they try to win over voters on one of the most divisive issues of November's presidential election.

The showdown in Texas comes as record numbers of migrant crossings into the United States create a major threat to Biden's chances of preventing a Trump comeback.

Democrat Biden will meet border patrol officers and law enforcement agents in Bronwnsville, Texas, while Republican Trump heads to Eagle Pass, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the west.

Biden has sought to defuse the politically toxic issue by blaming Republicans in Congress for failing to back his reforms to America's broken immigration system.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that in Brownsville Biden would deliver remarks to call highlight the need for Republicans to "get that done."

In a statement, the White House said he would tell them to "stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional US Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more."

But for Trump a hard anti-immigration stance has been central to his political identity for years, and he has pledged the biggest ever US deportation program if he returns to the White House.

"No country can sustain what is happening to our country," the former president told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington earlier this month.