Trump vows crackdown on migrants

US president says military would fight back if rocks thrown at border

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.

Thousands of Central American migrants resumed their slow trek through southern Mexico on Thursday.

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 front-and-center in the final stretch before next Tuesday's elections.

In addition to deploying the military to the southern border to stave off the caravan, Trump also announced plans to try to end the constitutionally-protected right of birthright citizenship for all children born in the US.

He brought up immigration issues several times during a political rally on Thursday night in Columbia, Missouri. He railed against "birth tourism", where mothers from abroad travel to the US to have babies so they will automatically be US citizens. And he denounced "chain migration", where these new citizens then bring in their extended families into the country.

The president announced on Wednesday that he was considering deploying up to 15,000 troops to the US-Mexican border in response to the caravans, roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission that has been criticized as unnecessary, considering the caravans remain hundreds of kilometers away.

Trump said on Thursday he was "not going to put up with" any sort of violence directed at those US forces, warning the military would fight back. "When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle," he said.

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 to self-defense.

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.

Trump said on Thursday that, under his order, any migrants who do enter the country would be housed in "massive tent cities" he plans to build while their cases are processed.

"We're going to catch, we're not going to release," he said.

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.

"He's really trying to scare the American public into thinking these are thousands of dangerous thugs," said Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's a classic strategy that goes back to 19th century nativist thinking."

Ap - Afp

(China Daily 11/03/2018 page8)