The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump warns migrants, plans order next week
Trump says he will sign order, speaks of ‘massive tents.’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thurs- day he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the south- ern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum — two proposals that mark his latest election-season barrage against illegal immigration.
“This is an invasio n ,” Trump declared as he has previously on a subject that has been shown to reso- nate strongly with his base of Republican supporters. He made his comments at the White House in a speech that was billed as a response to groups of migrants cur- rently walking toward the U.S. border.
He then left for an evening political rally in Missouri, the latest in a daily series he has scheduled leading up to Tues- day’s elections for control of Congress.
U.S. immigration 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 U.S. also doesn’t have space at the border to manage the large-scale detention of migrants, with most facil- ities at capacity. But Trump said the government would erect “massive tents.”
“We’re stopping people at the border,” he said firmly.
His announcement marked Trump’s latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration front-and-center in the final stretch before the elections.
Trump also said that he had told the U.S. military mobi- lizing at the southwest border that if U.S. troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were “rifles.”
The exact rules for the use of force by military police and other soldiers who will be operating near the border have not been disclosed, but in all cases troops have the right of self-defense. At any rate, they are not expected to be in positions where anyone trying to storm across the border would quickly come in contact with them.
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.
The president announced Wednesday that he was considering deploying up to 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mex- ican border in response to the still far-off caravans — roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans.
Trump said Thursday that, under his order, any migrants who do manage to enter the country illegally will be housed in “massive tent cities” he plans to build while their cases are processed.