Trump makes caravan a top issue
WASHINGTON – The caravan of Central Americans heading toward the United States is more than 1,000 miles from the border, but the political potency of their journey is already here.
President Donald Trump is increasingly seizing on the caravan as an issue in the midterm elections, hoping the images of migrants walking through Mexico will energize GOP voters in battleground states and tip the balance in the fight for control of Congress.
“The Democrat Party is openly encouraging caravan after caravan of illegal aliens to violate our laws and break into our country,” Trump said at a rally Wednesday in Wisconsin, echoing a line he has used in recent days.
Republican operatives – and Trump himself – have described the caravan as a political windfall, a symbol of a broken system they say is allowing the president to relitigate immigration as an issue that touches on the economy as well as law and order. Trump hit both themes hard during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The president has frequently invoked the caravan, estimated to include as many as 7,000 people, during rallies over the past week. In addition to holding the migrants up as a symbol of ineffective policy, he has also sprinkled in claims that the group includes “unknown Middle Easterners” or that Democrats are funding the caravan.
Pressed by reporters for evidence of those claims, Trump said border agents regularly stop potential terrorists, before adding that “there’s no proof of anything.”
Polling shows immigration remains a salient issue in several states holding important Senate races in next month’s midterm election, including Arizona and Texas, and national surveys indicate the debate carries more weight with Republicans. The GOP is fighting to maintain its House and Senate majorities.
“This could be a blessing in disguise, because it’s showing how bad our laws are,” Trump told USA TODAY in an interview this week as he flew to a rally in Houston, where he described the caravan as an “assault” on the country. “The Democrats are totally responsible.”
But GOP candidates are not unified on the president’s message about the caravan, and some have balked at the rhetoric he has used, noting it’s not clear how many of the migrants are trying to enter the country illegally versus making an asylum claim. White House officials describe the asylum process as a “loophole” because immigrants are sometimes allowed to stay for months or years until their asylum claim is reviewed by a court.
Democrats speculate that Trump’s play for the base of the party may be turning off independent voters who are more circumspect about “zero tolerance” border policies.
“To emphasize … the criminals among them, I just don’t think that it’s the right way to approach it,” Sen. Jeff Flake, a retiring Arizona Republican and frequent Trump critic, told CNN.
If the caravan is ginning up voter interest ahead of the midterms, it has yet to play a big role in campaign advertising. A USA TODAY review of Facebook ads in October showed only about four dozen ads mentioning “caravan” or “migrant.” By comparison, hundreds of political ads were placed by groups and candidates on Facebook in the days after the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh – another issue both parties say is energizing their voters.