Immigration occupies center stage in the 2024 presidential campaign and also was a major focus during the first presidential debate Thursday night between President Joe Biden and the presumptive GOP nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Immigration is a top issue for voters and for Trump, while the Biden administration has struggled to deal with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years.

Biden during the 90-minute debate at CNN in Atlanta defended his administration’s handling of immigration and blamed Trump for tanking a bipartisan U.S. Senate border security deal.

Biden and Trump trade insults, accusations of lying in acrimonious presidential debate

Biden also pointed to that deal as a reason he should be reelected, because the White House was able to forge the agreement in the first place.

“We worked very hard to get a bipartisan agreement,” Biden said.

Senate Republicans rejected the bipartisan border security deal earlier this year, siding with their House colleagues and Trump. The agreement would have significantly overhauled U.S. immigration law by creating a temporary procedure to shut down the border during active times and raising the bar for asylum claims.

Trump in the debate argued that Biden did not need legislation to enact policy changes at the southern border because “I didn’t have legislation, I said close the border.”

In early June, Biden made the most drastic crackdown on immigration of his administration, issuing an executive order that instituted a partial ban on asylum proceedings at the southern border.

Trump called that action “insignificant.”

The debate came the day after U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas gave a briefing from Tucson, Arizona, about a decline in migrant encounters following Biden’s executive order.

He said the Tucson sector has “seen a more than 45 percent drop in U.S. Border Patrol encounters since the president took action, and repatriations of encountered individuals in Tucson have increased by nearly 150 percent.”

“Across the entire southern border, Border Patrol encounters have dropped by over 40 percent,” Mayorkas said.

‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

Trump cited his prior policies that he felt were successful and criticized Biden for rolling them back, such as one that required migrants to remain in Mexico while they awaited their asylum cases.

Biden slammed Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy that separated parents from their children in efforts to deter unauthorized immigrants at the border.

“When he was president he was … separating babies from their mothers and putting them in cages,” Biden said.

And, without citing evidence, Trump blamed immigrants for crime, calling it “migrant crime.”

Overall violent crime in the country is down by 15%, according to recent FBI statistics, and researchers have found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.

Trump brought up the death of a Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, and blamed Biden’s immigration policies.

“All he does is make our country unsafe,” Trump said.

In late February, Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, was reported missing by her roommate when she did not return home after a run on the campus of the University of Georgia at Athens.

Local police found her body and shortly afterward arrested a 26-year-old man from Venezuela for her murder — an immigrant previously arrested in Georgia on a shoplifting charge who entered the country without authorization in 2022, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. U.S. House Republicans in reaction passed the Laken Riley Act.

Trump was asked by debate moderators how he would carry out mass deportations, but he did not go into detail.

He has repeatedly claimed he would carry out a mass deportation campaign of undocumented immigrants by utilizing local law enforcement, the National Guard and potentially the U.S. military. He’s done so on the campaign trail and during a lengthy interview with Time Magazine. 

“We have to get a lot of these people out and we got to get them out fast because they’re destroying our country,” Trump said during the debate.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — In a blow to advocates who celebrated earlier this month when the R.I. General Assembly passed a bill to legalize kratom, Gov. Dan McKee vetoed the legislation on Wednesday citing health and regulatory concerns.

The veto means Rhode Island will not lift a ban on the herbal substance, which advocates have said can boost your mood, mellow you out and serve as a substitute to the addiction-treating pharmaceutical drug known as Suboxone.

The so-called Kratom Consumer Protection Act, which would have legalized the substance, passed both the House and Senate. But most of Rhode Island’s health care community opposed the bill, arguing kratom has addictive qualities, isn’t well-researched and lacks a regulatory system.

McKee ultimately sided with medical professionals, along with R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office was among the state agencies that asked the governor to veto the legislation, according to a letter to the General Assembly from McKee.

“Due to the overwhelming opposition to this act by multiple state agencies, the medical community, and the Office of the Attorney General, I cannot support this act,” McKee wrote. “I look forward to working with the sponsors, my state agencies, and stakeholders to review and discuss these issues and examine the manner in which other states have regulated kratom.”

Rhode Island is one of six states where kratom is illegal. The herb is legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

It’s not a controlled substance on the federal level, either, although federal agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration don’t approve of it. State Rep. Jay Edwards, a Tiverton Democrat who’s championed legalization in Rhode Island, said it’s unlikely the General Assembly will attempt an override of the veto.

Edwards said he was disappointed with the governor’s decision and vowed to renew his effort next year. “I will be working with the governor and his team next year to enlighten them,” he said, highlighting that Rhode Island is a national outlier for banning the herbal substance.

National advocates likewise decried the governor’s decision.

Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy at the American Kratom Association, called the veto a “tragic outcome” and argued state agencies opposing the bill “misled the governor.”

“Rhode Islanders have been deprived of the opportunity to have a substance that when properly regulated is safe when it’s not adulterated — that’s what this bill would do,” he said, adding that the veto “continues to criminalize Rhode Islanders for using a dietary supplement that is not unsafe.”

Barring an override vote, kratom will continue to be a Schedule I drug in Rhode Island, which typically comes with harsh prison sentences and hefty fines for anyone who’s convicted. Kratom will remain illegal to sell, possess and consume in Rhode Island.

Despite the existing prohibition, a Target 12 investigation earlier this month revealed kratom is being sold behind the counter in stores across the state.

In addition to the state agencies that opposed the legislation, McKee pointed to federal agencies that warned against kratom. He also noted the new state budget doesn’t include any funding to pay for overseeing kratom legalization.

“The General Assembly did not provide any funding to effectively perform the duties as required in the act,” he wrote in the letter. “To properly regulate a new product, agencies need adequate funding to execute the requirements under this act.”