President Trump’s renewed focus on border security is benefitting GOP candidates heading into the midterm elections, analyst Karlyn Bowman said in an interview that aired Thursday on “What America’s Thinking.”
“Border security is an issue that’s a plus for Republicans generally, so that’s why Trump’s talking about it,” Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha. “Illegal immigration is a plus for the Republicans, whereas immigration and DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] are definitely pluses for the Democrats.”
“The border security issue — being a nation of laws, having people come through an asylum process properly — is something a lot of people really care about in the United States,” she added.
Bowman’s comments come as Trump has made illegal immigration and border security a central issue in the final weeks of the 2018 midterm campaign season in an effort to rally the Republican base.
The president has repeatedly said that a caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S. border is a threat to national security.
A majority of GOP voters appear to share the president’s sentiments, with 60 percent of Republicans saying Mexico should send the migrants back to their home countries, according to a new American Barometer survey.
— Julia Manchester
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