GOP presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., will visit the U.S. southern border Friday amid a surge in migrant arrests, his campaign announced.
Scott will travel to Yuma, Arizona, on Friday to tour the border and later hold a roundtable with leaders in the community. His campaign says he will talk about his plans to eliminate illegal immigration and tackle cartel groups.
The visit will be Scott's first to the border as a 2024 candidate, The Hill reported.
"If you don't control your back door at your house, it's not your house," Scott said in a statement. "If you don't control your southern border, it might not be our country. That's why on my first day as commander in chief, the strongest nation on Earth will stop retreating from our own southern border."
Arrests of migrants at the southern border have spiked recently. The Washington Post reported Tuesday there were more than 130,000 arrests in July, according to preliminary U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures the newspaper obtained early.
In comparison, close to 100,000 arrests were made in June, with an increase of more than 30% between the two months.
There was a big increase in illegal crossings in the deserts of southern Arizona despite daytime temperatures often surpassing 110 degrees, The Washington Post reported. U.S. agents there made about 40,000 arrests in July, the highest one-month total for the Tucson sector in 15 years, CBP data show, the Post reported.
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates have lambasted President Joe Biden over his record at the southern border, where illegal crossings reached all-time highs in 2021 and 2022, the Post noted.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley traveled to the southern border in early April, making stops in between San Antonio and Eagle Pass, Texas.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled to Eagle Pass in late June.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.