Biden and Trump on Thursday are scheduled to take part in the first of two presidential debates.
On the eve of the year’s first presidential debate, a new media firestorm has been ignited over reports that 400 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with the aid of a human smuggling network linked to terror group ISIS.
Immigration is bound to be a core topic of discourse when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night face off in the first of two one-on-one debates. The event, which will be televised and hosted by CNN, will take place unusually early in the election cycle and without a studio audience.
Trump and other Republicans have condemned Biden’s border policies amid a surge in encounters at the southern border since he took office, while the incumbent president has accused Trump of deliberately attempting to make the issue worse by blocking a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
On Wednesday, CNN and NBC reported on the identification of 400 migrants who were purportedly smuggled over the border by a network affiliated with ISIS, with both networks citing anonymous U.S. officials.
NBC reported that 150 of the 400 had been arrested, while the whereabouts of 50 are currently unknown. An official told the network that Immigration and Customs Enforcement hopes to arrest the missing migrants once they are found.
