In appeal to his base, Trump reportedly mulls executive order to block migrants

(Image credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

published 26 October 2018

President Trump is considering an executive action to block Central American migrants from entering the United States, several administration officials told The New York Times on Thursday.

The Times reports that as soon as Tuesday, Trump, citing national security concerns, could issue a proclamation invoking broad presidential powers to block migrants from coming into the country. The administration would also enact new rules making it so migrants who cross the border between ports of entry can no longer claim asylum. Officials stressed to the Times that the plan could be dropped or revamped.

With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, Trump has been playing to his base, claiming that a caravan of several thousand migrants from Central America, now 1,000 miles away from the southern U.S. border, is a threat. No one knows when the caravan will arrive, or how many of the people will try to enter the U.S. Most are from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, citing poverty and violence as the reasons why they left. Kerri Talbot, director of the Immigrant Hub organization, told Politico Trump is attempting to make the migrant caravan major news in order to energize his base and "distract voters from core issues like health care."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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