Sunday on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) said separating immigrant children from their families at the border was the Republican Party’s attempt to win the 2018 midterm elections.

Gutiérrez said, “Their election-year strategy to win the midterm elections, that is keep their jobs, right — is to be as vicious and as cruel as you can be to immigrants. And what’s happening on the border is one of those manifestations, so they can say to their base voters, look what we are doing, look how we’re keeping them down. Vote for us. So it’s to use the xenophobia, the bigotry, hatred and fear of immigrants in order to stoke your voters base. That’s wrong, and that’s what they’re doing.”

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