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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he intended to sign an order next week, which could result in large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and banning anyone illegally taken from entering the border. Asylum, two legally dubious proposals last barrage of the election season against illegal immigration.
Trump also said that he had told the US Army mobilized at the Southwest border that if US troops were confronted with migrants who were throwing stones, they should react as if they were "guns" ".
"It's an invasion," said Trump, as he has already done on a subject that has been shown to resonate strongly with his base of Republican supporters. He made his remarks at the White House in a discourse discourse, campaign style, presented as an answer to the caravans of migrants moving slowly on foot to the US border. But Trump gave little details of how he planned to reorganize an asylum system which he claimed was the victim of "endemic violence" which he said was "ridiculing our immigration system".
US immigration law clearly states that asylum-seeking migrants may do so at or between border crossings. But Trump said he would limit that to official crossing points. The United States also does not have border space to manage the large-scale retention of migrants, as most facilities are at full capacity. Trump said the government would erect "massive tents" instead.
His announcement marks Trump's latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration at the center of concerns in the final stretch before next Tuesday's election. Trump spent the last days of the campaign pounding the problem on every occasion as he was trying to energize Republican voters using the same game book that had helped him win in 2016. In addition to the Deploying the army to the southern border to ward off the caravan, Trump announced plans to try to end the constitutionally guaranteed right to citizenship for all children born in the United States
He referred to immigration issues several times at a political rally on Thursday night in Columbia, Missouri. He spoke out against "birth tourism," where mothers from abroad travel to America to have babies so that they automatically become US citizens. And he denounced the "chain migration", where these new citizens then bring their extended family to the country.
"You come to the country – you're almost two months old … and you're going to bring everything to them – your uncles and aunts, your grandfathers and a lot of people," he said.
The president announced on Wednesday that he planned to deploy up to 15,000 troops at the US-Mexico border in response to the caravans – about double the number reported by the Pentagon, which currently plans a mission deemed unnecessary. , whereas caravans remain hundreds of miles away.
Trump said Thursday that he "would not stand" any form of violence directed against US forces, warning that the military would react. "When they throw stones as they did to the Mexican army and police, I say it's a rifle," he said.
The exact rules regarding the use of force by the military police and other soldiers who will operate near the border have not been disclosed, but in any case the troops have the right to self-defense.
However, Mark Hertling, a retired army general, wrote on Twitter after Trump's speech that no military officer would allow a soldier to shoot an individual throwing a rock. "It would be an illegal order," he writes, citing the law of land warfare.
Trump said Thursday that under his command, all migrants entering the country would be accommodated in "gigantic tent cities" that he plans to build while processing their case.
"We will catch, we will not release," he said.
Under the current protocol, many asylum seekers are released while their cases are awaiting treatment in court, which can take years.
Critics said the speech seemed primarily intended to scare, unspecified about the mechanisms that Trump intended to use to make his desired changes happen. Administration officials told the AP that Trump intended to invoke the same authority that he had used to enforce his controversial travel ban, but one do not know if that's what he was doing with Thursday's speech.
"He's really trying to scare the American public into believing that it's about thousands of dangerous thugs," said Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's a classic strategy that dates back to 19th century nativist thought."
Trump and other senior administration officials have long said that asylum seekers had to go through legal entry points. But many migrants are unaware of these indications and the official borders are increasingly congested. Immigration officials have refused asylum seekers at the borders because of overcrowding, asking them to return later. Arrears have particularly worsened in recent months at border crossings in California, Arizona and Texas. In general, people wait five weeks before applying for asylum at San Diego's main border post and sleep outside under the stars for days.
Migrants who cross illegally are usually arrested and often ask for asylum or some other form of protection. Claims for compensation have grown in recent years and the backlog of more than 800,000 cases is pending before an immigration court. Officials protested what they saw as loopholes to encourage citizens, especially from Central America, to come to the United States and seek asylum. As a general rule, only about 20% of candidates are approved.
The United States processed more than 330,000 asylum applications in 2017, nearly double the number of them two years ago and overtook Germany, one of the most raised in the world.
But we do not know how many people currently en route to the United States will even go to the border.
There are currently four caravans. The main group of about 4,000 migrants – down from the estimated peak of more than 7,000 – remains in southern Mexico, hundreds of kilometers from the border. A second, smaller group of about 1,000 people is more than 200 miles from the first. A third group of about 500 people from El Salvador went to Guatemala, and a fourth group of about 700 people left Wednesday from the Salvadoran capital.
Similar caravans have regularly gathered over the years and have generally declined as they reach the southern border. And most have gone largely unnoticed.
Trump nevertheless organized a huge show of force in response to their movement, which coincides with the elections that will determine which party will control the Congress.
The first 100 active duty troops arrived at the border in McAllen, Texas on Thursday – part of the "more than 7,000" troops that the Pentagon said were sent to support customs and defense officials. borders.
"These illegal caravans will not be allowed in the United States and they should turn around now because they are wasting their time," Trump said Thursday.
He said that his executive order would be published next week, which means it could be after polling day.
Trump rejected the idea that he had "terrorized" and used the issue for political ends, but on Thursday he blamed the Democrats for the "incompetent, very, very stupid laws we have." He noted at one point: "Women want security".
Trump also tweeted Wednesday a video claiming, without any evidence, that Democrats were responsible for admitting a homicidal immigrant to the United States. The video recalled the infamous "Willie Horton" advertisement used against the Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis in 1988, and condemned for racism.
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Associate press editors Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California and Zeke Miller and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to the writing of this report.
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For full coverage of US mid-term elections by AP: http://apne.ws/APPolitics
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