Trump makes migrant caravan an election issue

President Donald Trump is framing the 4,000-strong migrant caravan amassing at the Mexico-Guatemala border and hoping to reach the United States as a crucial issue ahead of midterm elections. At a campaign rally Thursday night in Missoula, Mont., the president said midterms, less than a month away, would be “an election of [recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense.”

Trump continued to call for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, pointing to the caravan as an example of its need. He voiced a theory that the large group of migrants from Honduras may be in some way backed by anti-Republican donors, saying it’s possible that “a lot of money has been passing through people to try to get to the border by Election Day, because they think that is a negative for us.”

The caravan set out Saturday from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, its numbers snowballing as many joined to flee poverty and gang violence. Most of the travelers, lacking passports, want to apply for refugee status in the United States. On Thursday, the president threatened to send troops to the southern U.S. border if Mexico did not halt the caravan in time. Trump also ratcheted up pressure on El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala by threatening Tuesday to cut U.S. aid if they allowed the migrants to travel through their countries illegally.

Caravan members are waiting on the Guatemala side of the Suchiate River and are expected to attempt to cross either on foot over a bridge, which is patrolled by Guatemalan police, or via rafts in the river on Friday. Mexico has deployed at least two busloads of police to its side of the river. At the rally in Montana, Trump praised Mexico’s attempts to stop the mass migration.