Trump revives fiery immigration rhetoric for ‘caravan’ election

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Donald Trump fueled his 2016 campaign with fiery immigration rhetoric, visions of hordes flowing across the border to assault Americans and steal their jobs. Now, in the final weeks before midterm elections, he’s back at it as he looks to stave off Democratic gains in Congress.

It’s an approach that offers both risks and rewards. He could energize Democratic foes as well as the Republicans he wants to rouse to the polls.

But for the president, the potential gains clearly win out. In campaign stops and on Twitter in recent days, he has seized on a huge caravan of Central American migrants trying to reach the United States through Mexico as fresh evidence that his tough immigration prescriptions are needed.

He tweeted that the caravan was an “assault on our country at our Southern Border.” Then, Thursday night in Montana, he told cheering supporters, “This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order and common sense. … Remember it’s gonna be an election of the caravan.”

His assertions got a visual boost Friday when some members of the caravan broke through a Guatemalan border barrier with Mexico. A few then got through to Mexican territory, but most were repelled by police with riot shields and pepper spray.

Trump signaled Friday he thought the strategy was working, telling reporters in Scottsdale, Arizona, that immigration was “a great issue for the Republicans.”

On an aggressive campaign blitz, has sought to cast the midterms as a referendum on his presidency, believing that he must insert himself into the national conversation in order to bring Republicans out to vote. Perhaps no issue was more identified with his last campaign than immigration.