ANALYSIS — Immigration is shaping the 2024 campaign, and the hot-button issue soon could overwhelm Capitol Hill and bring work in both chambers to a halt.
Republicans felt pressure last year by interest groups to run, in part, on a 15-week federal abortion ban. But the politics of that sensitive issue turned sharply against the GOP. Another 2024 grenade Republicans had planned to toss onto the 2024 battlefield was the economy. But recent economic data suggests key indicators are making voters’ finances more robust, potentially handing President Joe Biden and Democrats the issue on the campaign trail.
That has made immigration — including the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, which even many Democrats now call a “crisis” — the engine of the Republican message machine.
