As Trump campaigns daily for Republicans in the election's final stretch, he has filled his public appearances with off-the-cuff policy proposals and rhetoric designed to stoke fear of immigrants. It reflects the strategy he deployed during his presidential election victory in 2016. On Oct. 22, the president claimed the GOP was "putting in a resolution some time in the next week and a half or two weeks" before the midterms to cut middle-income taxes by about 10 percent. Trump said the reduction would come on top of the tax cuts Republicans already passed last year. His claim came under immediate suspicion since Congress is not in session and has taken no action on the proposal since. After Trump made his remarks, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said his committee would work with the White House on a bill "to be advanced as Republicans retain the House and Senate." Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, later told reporters that a 10 percent tax cut is "highly unlikely" this year. More of Trump's last-minute midterm maneuvering has focused on immigration. He has repeatedly stoked fears about the so-called caravan of Central American migrants seeking asylum, asserting with no evidence that MS-13 gang members or "unknown Middle Easterners" are traveling with them. He further tried to stoke fear Monday with an unfounded claim that the caravan is an "invasion" of the United States. Trump tweet Also on Monday, the Pentagon said it would send 5,200 troops, some armed, to the border to stop the first caravan and a separate group of migrants that was still far away from U.S. borders. Some criticism of the move tied Trump's motives to the midterms. "President Trump has chosen just before midterm elections to force the military into furthering his anti-immigrant agenda of fear and division," said Shaw Drake, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Border Rights Center in El Paso, Texas.

Certain Republicans trying to win critical races have fully embraced Trump's immigration rhetoric. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican who hopes to hold a key Senate seat for the GOP in red Tennessee, said Monday she "fully" supports the president's move to send troops to the border. "We must protect America from the illegal alien mob demanding to come into our country the wrong way," Blackburn wrote in a tweet. It is unclear what Blackburn means by "the wrong way," but if migrants make an asylum claim at a designated point of entry, it is legal. Blackburn tweet Trump followed Monday's move with more explosive remarks Tuesday that seemed to be an attempt to excite his base. He told Axios he plans to sign an executive order to remove the right of citizenship for people born in the U.S. to non-citizens. Critics of the move, even some Republicans, noted that birthright citizenship comes from the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It is likely not within the president's power to end birthright citizenship on his own. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that "you cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," according to reports. Another House Republican, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, expressed the same sentiment earlier in the day. "A president cannot amend Constitution or laws via executive order," he tweeted. Amash tweet