President Joe Biden and Republican presidential nominee frontrunner former President Donald Trump are scheduled to visit border cities in Texas this week as immigration issues continue to dominate on the campaign trail.

Trump is expected to speak in Eagle Pass – the battleground of many showdowns between Texas and the federal government – on Thursday, CNN reported. About 325 miles away in Brownsville, Biden will meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement officials and local leaders, a White House official told the New York Times on Monday.

Advocates said this would be Biden’s first visit to Brownsville, and would also be the first day of the Charro Days festival, a yearly binational cultural celebration between the Texas city and its Mexican neighbor city Matamoros. Community groups are nonetheless frustrated by the nature of Biden’s visit.

“We instead are ignored in exchange for a press event, ironically to meet with law enforcement officers about border security, a trope we have lived daily with under the Abbott administration that makes it a habit to peacock flagrant tax expenditures under shock and awe tactics,” Voces Unidas RGV, an organization part of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, noted in a statement.

The coalition is composed of 60 migrant advocacy groups, including ARISE and American Friends Service Committee, located across the border from San Diego to Brownsville.

Border security has been a dominant campaign issue ahead of the likely rematch between Biden and Trump in the November election. According to a Gallup poll, immigration is the most common issue mentioned by adult voters who disapprove of Biden’s performance.

The White House official said the president on Thursday will urge legislators to pass a bipartisan border security bill, which they referred to as the “toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades.” The deal, which would have been linked to overseas aid, was recently opposed by Republicans, who long planned to strike it down to support stricter legislation. This aligns with Trump’s presidential campaign, which runs on a platform to stop all immigration.

“He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more,” according to the White House official.

Biden last visited the southern border at El Paso, Texas, in January last year on his way to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss the influx of migration into the U.S.

Migrant advocates criticized Biden’s upcoming trip and said the president is not visiting to assuage the border community’s fears but to discuss passing the “terrible” bipartisan bill to overhaul the asylum process.

“Despite these visits to the border, despite the photo ops and the press friendly quotes, we remain unimpressed with the Biden Administration’s lackluster commitment to our Texas border communities, especially our immigrant, low-income, mixed status communities,” Voces Unidas RGV continued. “If President Biden seeks to be the public servant that people need, he must take the time to sit down with underserved communities to hear where they stand.”

According to Customs and Border Protection data, more than 300,000 migrants were found trying to illegally cross the border in December. It is part of a larger pattern showing the highest rates of migration in 20 years, according to the Pew Research Center.

Texas has been leading a fierce fight against the federal government over border security. Since 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott has bussed more than 100,000 migrants from the southern border to cities like Denver, New York and Chicago, which have struggled to support those asylum seekers.

State officials in January said Texas would not grant Border Patrol full access to the U.S.-Mexico border in the Shelby Park area of Eagle Pass, where a woman and her two children drowned in the Rio Grande. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state to block an immigration law that would allow Texas judges to deport people without due process.

Lilian Serrano, the director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said border communities have long bore the brunt of “divisive rhetoric and misguided policies.”

“President Biden’s visit to Brownsville may last a few hours but it is our communities that stay to witness firsthand the profound impact our border policies have on the lives of individuals and families seeking safety,” Serrano said. “It is imperative that we confront this reality with compassion, empathy and respect for human rights. Our border communities are more than a campaign backdrop.”

According to the White House official, Biden also plans to meet with Congressional leaders on Tuesday to pass a global securities package for overseas aid and avoid a partial government shutdown on Friday.