Trump Accuses Democrats Of Funding Migrant Caravan To Stir Midterm Support

In a bid to stir up support for the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections, President Donald Trump accused Democrats of supporting the caravan of thousands of Central American refugees making their way to country’s southern border.

In a rally on Thursday, President Trump claimed that the Democrats were supporting the caravan in the hopes of using the migrants fleeing their homeland as voters during November’s election.

“It’s going to be an election of the caravan,” Trump said at the Montana rally.

If the caravan migrants were allowed into the U.S., that would not immediately make them citizens, meaning they would not be able to vote.

Trump went on to accuse the opposition party of crafting weak immigration laws in order to boost the number of Democratic voters.

“As you know, I’m willing to send the military to defend our southern border if necessary, all ’cause — because of the illegal immigration onslaught brought by the Democrats because they refuse to acknowledge or to change the laws,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “They like it. They also figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat, you know. Hey, they’re not so stupid when you think about it, right?”

The president’s has yet to provide evidence supporting his claims, and has often used the Democrat’s less stringent policy regarding immigration as a sign that they support “open borders.”

“They almost want there to be an immigration challenge because they are looking for some way to create something to frighten the American people during an election,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) told CNN.

During the rally, Trump said that if a person got into the country illegally, the government would be powerless to deport them, and implied that the laws that mandate this were crafted by Democrats.

“A foot hits the ground — you know, if a foot hits the ground, we’re not allowed to say ‘Hey, go back.’ Every other country in the world, they say go back. ‘Can’t come in, sorry,’” Trump said. “A foot hits the ground, we have to, by law, with these horrible people that are making their own rules having nothing to do with our Constitution.”

The president blamed so-called the “catch and release” policy, which allows certain illegal immigrants the ability to remain in the U.S. and out of jail as they await immigration hearings.

The mechanism exists because of the overworked and underfunded immigration court system that can only support a maximum of 40,000 cases at a time.

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As of yet, Trump has failed to help the court system, though he has often complained about the effects of its backlog.

Since the caravan first departed the Central American nation of Honduras, the president has threatened the nation and its neighbors with the withdrawal of aid if the caravan was not “stopped and brought back.”

The migrants themselves claim to be fleeing to U.S. in order to escape the violence and chaos of their home countries.