Story updated at 11:35 a.m.
Metro Atlanta's most competitive congressional contests have largely hinged on kitchen table issues such as health care and the economy so far. But the migrant caravan winding its way to the southern border has made immigration a hot topic during the races' final days and underscored the deep divide between the two parties on the issue.
President Donald Trump has described the situation – in which thousands of people from mainly Honduras and Guatemala have been walking north toward to the U.S. border, where many plan to seek asylum – as a national security risk.
Sixth District Congresswoman Karen Handel aligned herself with the president’s take on Tuesday. She said the situation underscored the need for a border wall and stepped-up security measures.
"I hope we can all agree that a caravan of thousands of people coming towards our border and trying to storm our border is something we cannot tolerate," the Roswell Republican said during this week's Atlanta Press Club debate. "We do need to secure our border."
Handel and Lawrenceville Republican Rob Woodall, who's running for reelection in the nearby 7th Congressional District, backed a pair of immigration bills the House considered this summer after the public outcry over the family separation crisis reached a fever pitch. Those GOP-authored measures both sought to make broader structural changes to the country's immigration laws but fell short of passage after nearly every Democrat and some Republicans voted against them.
During another televised debate Tuesday, Woodall pinned the blame on Democrats for rejecting many of the GOP’s recent overtures to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws.
“Folks would rather vote ‘no’ and save that as a political issue than solve those problems,” said Woodall when asked about his stance on so-called Dreamers, people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. “I need fewer people with good one-liners and more people who are willing to sit down and roll up their sleeves and do the hard work.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill have accused Republicans of rejecting standalone versions of the Dream Act over the years as leverage to push for more restrictive immigration changes.
Immigration has been an issue of particular interest in Gwinnett County, which has been trending Democratic in recent years and is now majority non-white. The 7th District also includes the deeply conservative Forsyth County.
Carolyn Bourdeaux, Woodall’s Democratic opponent, has argued her opponent is out of step with the district on immigration. On the Central American caravan, she said Tuesday that the U.S. “can handle 5,000 immigrants, many of whom are fleeing for their lives and coming to our country to seek safety.”
Bourdeaux said Congress needs to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul that offers Dreamers a path to citizenship, doesn’t separate children from their parents at the border and “respects human dignity and recognizes the economic realities on the ground.”
Lucy McBath, who is challenging Handel, offered up similar ideas during the 6th District debate.
“Yes, we need to have secure borders, but we are America and we should treat each and every person with dignity and respect,” she said.
Neither challenger has adopted a proposal pushed by some liberal Democrats to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency in charge of detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, among other enforcement activities.
McBath invoked an incident on the House floor during the thick of the child separation crisis, when Handel as the GOP's presiding officer gaveled down a speech from a California Democrat after he broke the chamber's rules to play undercover audio of children crying at a detention center.
Handel said she was “vilified” for the episode and that her “life was threatened.” Her campaign later elaborated that she received threats following the events on the floor, including her personal information being leaked online, and that at least one threat was referred to the Capitol Police.
Both Woodall and Handel said they were opposed to "sanctuary cities," or jurisdictions that limit how local police can cooperate with the feds on immigration. Georgia has outlawed such designations since 2009, but Atlanta has condemned Trump's crackdown on sanctuary cities and framed itself as "welcoming" jurisdiction.
“The more we tell one another that you just get to pick and choose as a community … which laws you want to follow and which laws you don’t, the more we undermine one of those things that makes us so great as a nation, and that’s that we’re all equal and we’re all protected under the law,” said Woodall.
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