For one it is "an invasion of millions of criminals and psychopaths", for the other a crisis "to be faced together without political exploitation".
Donald Trump and Joe Biden fly on the same day to the border between Texas and Mexico but the distance between the two approaches to the migrant drama could not be wider.
From Eagle Pass, one of the cities at the center of the crisis, the tycoon accused the policies of the Democratic president and assured that if he returns to the White House he will use a hard fist by launching a plan for "mass deportations" of asylum seekers and promising pardon to the agents who will implement it.
A few hundred kilometers away, in the Texan town of Brownsville, Biden thanked the police for the work they do every day and attacked his opponent, accusing him of not thinking about the interests of the Americans.
"Instead of political games and calls for filibusters, Trump should join me in telling Congress to pass the compromise that was reached. We can do it together."
However, the agreement in Congress on the budget law which includes aid to Israel, Ukraine and for border security is still far away.
After months of close negotiations in the Senate, an agreement was reached on immigration which would have allowed the allocation of further resources and granted the commander in chief the powers to close, if necessary, border access points.
A compressed "bipartisanship", in which no one got everything he wanted and which in the end was rejected by the extremist Trumpians.
If the migrant issue is one of the hottest issues of this electoral campaign, both Biden and Trump also have other issues to resolve in recent days.
The president will have to address the State of the Union speech, which he will hold on Capitol Hill on Thursday 7 March, without having taken any steps forward towards a truce in Gaza, indeed with an increasingly tragic situation and his ally Benjamin Netanyahu who refuses any Washington's proposal.
The tycoon, however, is dealing with the hearing in Florida on the Mar a Lago secret papers case during which judge Aileen Cannon could decide the start date of the trial.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith proposed July 8, shortly before the Republican convention in Milwaukee on July 15-18, which should crown Trump by handing him the nomination.
The former president's lawyers instead aim to postpone the trial until after the elections, but propose August 12 as an alternative.
At the same time in Georgia, the future of another proceeding against the tycoon is being decided, perhaps the most serious, the one for the attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 elections. Trump's lawyers are trying to have the county prosecutor removed from the case by Fulton Fani Willis, accused of conflict of interest for her relationship with Nathan Wade, the colleague she hired to instruct the investigation, and the decision should arrive in the next few days.
on the attack.
The tycoon's only opponent in the race for the nomination, Nikki Haley, attacks him on the many open cases, underlining the need for him to be tried before the November elections.
"We need to know what happens before the vote because afterwards, if he were to become president, we won't hear about it anymore," said the former governor of South Carolina, specifying that Trump has the right to defend himself but his legal problems must be addressed quickly.
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