Migrant trek

Trump vows crackdown at border as caravan resumes

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump has said he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border of the United States and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum.

Trump also said he had told the US military mobilizing at the southwest border that if US troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were “rifles”.

“This is an invasion,” Trump declared on Thursday, as he has previously on a subject that has been shown to resonate strongly with his base of Republican supporters.

US laws make clear that migrants seeking asylum may do so either at or between border crossings. But Trump said he would limit that to official crossing points. The US also doesn’t have space at the border to manage the large-scale detention of migrants, with most facilities at capacity. Trump said the government would erect “massive tents” instead.

The announcement marked Trump’s latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration frontand-center in the final stretch before next Tuesday’s elections.

Still, 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 unlawful order,” he wrote, citing the Law of Land Warfare.

Critics said the speech seemed mostly designed to scare, with no specifics on what mechanisms Trump intended to use to push through his desired changes. Officials have said that Trump intends to invoke the same authority he used to push through his controversial travel ban, but it’s not clear if that’s what he was doing with Thursday’s speech.