(Headline USA) The ad sounds like it was made by a Republican, trumpeting a senator’s work with Republicans to crack down on the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S., getting tough on Chinese interests helping smugglers, and noting how he “wrote a bill signed by Donald Trump to increase funding for Border Patrol.”
It’s actually a commercial for Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat facing a tough reelection fight that will help decide control of the Senate.
“Ohioans trust Sherrod Brown to keep us safe,” says the narrator of the ad, sponsored by the Democrat-aligned Duty and Country PAC. His campaign declined to comment.
The message is one more indication of the political and security challenges the U.S.-Mexico border has presented for Joe Biden.
Some Democrats across the country are distancing themselves from the White House, and polls indicate widespread frustration with Biden’s handling of immigration and the border, creating a major liability for the president’s re-election next year.
Upon taking office, Biden paused border wall construction and canceled the Trump administration’s “ Remain in Mexico ” program.
Border crossings are now skyrocketing, which observers blame on the Biden administration.
Republican-led border states started busing thousands of immigrants to Democratic-led cities across the country, creating in many places a huge shortage of space that’s led to makeshift shelters and camps.
In Chicago, O’Hare International Airport is now housing hundreds of illegals. They sleep on cardboard pads on the floor and share airport bathrooms.
New York Mayor Eric Adams went to Mexico this week to implore would-be migrants not to come. He has accused the Biden administration of not providing enough money or resources for the city to process migrants, telling reporters this summer, “The president and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.”
Polling suggests that Americans across the political spectrum — even some people sympathetic to immigration — are concerned.
A Marquette Law School poll of registered voters conducted in late September gave Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, a 24-point advantage over Biden on handling immigration and border security issues — 52% to 28%.
Border security was also a weak spot for Biden among independents, with 66% saying they disapproved.
Sixty-one percent of Democrats said they wanted stronger law enforcement at the border, as did two-thirds of Latino or Hispanic voters (65%).
Auri Lugo, a 31-year-old Venezuelan who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said she thought resuming deportations was the right thing to do.
“There are a lot of Venezuelans who are in shelters, who are not working. They do not have a work permit. So they are on the streets.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
