Latest news on the United States: Trump plans a "mid-term border closure"

The upcoming mid-term elections on November 6 in the United States will help define the rest of Donald Trump's presidency.

Americans will vote for members of both houses of Congress, as well as governors in 36 of the 50 states.

From here, we will bring you the updates and the best analysis every day of the week.

Today, we are looking at the southern border, a special hotline and a bad day at the office of Michael Avenatti, a presidential candidate.

A key problem

According to reports in the US press, President Trump plans to close the southern border of the country with the help of a decree.

This measure would prevent migrants, including asylum seekers, from entering the country through Mexico.

It follows days of president tweets waving a caravan of North American immigrants advancing from the north to the United States.

Trump linked the issue to the mid-term goals, although the group is still more than 1,000 km and weeks away.

Energetic action at the border should work well with Trump's anti-immigration base – who elected him with a rhetoric deemed hard about the US-Mexico border.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Trump could announce his closure early next week, citing national security concerns, as he had done with other travel bans.

Defense Secretary James Mattis is also expected to deploy about 800 troops to the US-Mexico border to help stop the group of migrants.

Hotline to a voter

Democrats in Georgia have launched a special hotline to help answer questions from perplexed voters.

The call center, nicknamed CNN's "War Zone" for voter protection, was set up to help a race dominated by accusations of crackdown on the vote.

The Georgian state secretary, Brian Kemp, is neck and neck against former state representative, Stacey Abrams, who hopes to become the first African-American governor of the country.

Earlier in the race, a bomb reported by the Associated Press reported that 53,000 registrations (including 70 percent of black voters) had been blocked by Kemp's office for technical reasons.

Abrams accused her opponent of wanting electoral repression, saying her "behavior" is eroding public confidence in the system.

Mother Jones went behind the scenes at the hotline office, where 180 volunteers work in teams to answer about 300 calls, 12 hours a day.

A bad day

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer known for representing adult movie star Stormy Daniels, had a very bad day at the office on Thursday.

The critical critic Trump, who has openly expressed his ambitions to run for the presidency, is taking very strict steps to get an interview he gave to Time magazine.

In this article, Mr. Avenatti said that he thought the Democrats' candidate for 2020 "would be interested in being a white man."

Pressed further, he cited the "realities of the situation" for his statement.

"I think if the Democrats appoint a person other than a white man to top the list, they will lose the elections," he told the magazine.

On the same day, Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick (who had made allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh prior to his confirmation) were referred to the Department of Justice.

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has written to the FBI and Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to investigate for "making false statements" in his committee.

On Twitter, Mr. Avenatti, who stands beside his client, welcomed any survey stating, "It's Christmas in October!"

Choose the result

Write your own future with our mid-term election sign game, showing all the possible results of the vote. There are only 11 days left.