Delegation trips to the border. Apocalyptic warnings. A flurry of news conferences. Republicans still divided over former President Donald Trump’s legacy are seizing on his signature campaign issue, turning their focus to immigration as they try to regain the political upper hand. Faced with President Joe Biden’s early popularity, good news about vaccinations, and Americans’ embrace of the COVID-19 relief bill Washington Republicans opposed, the GOP is leaning in on the highly charged issue amid a spike in border crossings. They hope immigration can unite the party heading into next year’s elections, when control of Congress is at stake. “Heading into the midterms, I think that Republicans are increasingly realizing that this can be one of the most potent issues, both to motivate our voters, but equally as important, to appeal to” swing voters — especially in suburban swing districts — who voted for Democrats in 2020, said former Trump aide Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration policies. He said the issue has been a subject of discussion in his recent conversations with lawmakers as child border crossings have surged, straining U.S. facilities. The situation at the southern border is complex. Since Biden’s inauguration, the country has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials, with 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168% and 63% from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge, since children, in particular, require higher standards of care and coordination across agencies. Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families remain lower than at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019. That May, authorities encountered more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and around 84,500 migrants traveling in family units. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from seizing on the issue, led by Trump himself. They blame Biden, who has been deeply critical of Trump’s approach, for rolling back many of the former president’s hard-line deterrence policies. And they liken Biden’s new, kinder tone to an invitation to would-be border crossers. “They’re destroying our country. People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands,” warned Trump in an interview Tuesday night with Fox News Channel. “And, frankly, our country can’t handle it. It is a crisis like we have rarely had and, certainly, we have never had on the border.” “It’s more than a crisis. This is a human heartbreak,” said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who led a delegation of a dozen fellow House Republicans to El Paso, Texas, on Monday. “This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration,” he said. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who is planning to lead his own Senate delegation tour to the Texas-Mexico border next Friday, accused the administration of having, “in effect, issued an invitation for unaccompanied children to come to this country.” Even Sen. Mitt Romney, one of Trump’s most prominent Republican critics, faulted Biden’s moves, including the halting of construction of Trump’s signature border wall project. “What’s happening at our southern border is a real crisis, and the Administration is making it worse by unlawfully freezing border wall funding appropriated by Congress,” Romney tweeted after signing onto a letter with 39 […]

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