Edinburg, Texas – Donald Trump took his presidential campaign down to the Mexico border on Sunday, doubling down on his hardline immigration rhetoric.

The Republican leader said border security had evaporated under President Joe Biden, with "gangs of thugs" pouring into the US.

"We're going to take over that border and we're going to make it the most secure border in our history," Trump said.

He was speaking to a supportive group of border guards and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a like-minded Republican who has endorsed Trump's 2024 campaign.

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The former president was also seen Sunday taking photos while meals were served to the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers at the border ahead of Thanksgiving.

In recent weeks, the former president has ramped up his campaign rhetoric to extreme levels, warning that undocumented migrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" and denouncing his political opponents as "vermin."

He employed similar language Sunday, referring to some migrants as "the enemy" and predicting that 15 million undocumented migrants would be in the country by the end of Biden's first term – a number millions larger than estimates by most non-governmental groups.

Govenor Abbott, like Trump, has pursued hard-line immigration policies, including installing a 1,000-foot floating barrier in the Rio Grande that critics say imperils migrants attempting to cross.

The Texas legislature recently passed a bill that would make entry into the state without papers a crime punishable by up to two years in jail. The bill would also allow Texas officers to arrest anyone they believed was in the state without proper documentation, a power that critics say is sure to be abused.

Abbott has vowed to sign the measure into law.

The Trump campaign has made clear that if the real estate tycoon returns to the White House, he will engineer a tough crackdown on the undocumented, reportedly including huge detention camps and mass deportations.