Trump Considers Executive Order to Shut Down Southern Border

[Content Note: Nativism.]

There is no urgent crisis threatening the United States because of undocumented immigration — not an employment crisis, not a crime and violence crisis, not a health crisis. The Trump Regime's vile nativism is policy of malice built around invented threats used to justify white supremacy and fear-mongering to rally their deplorable base (and to funnel taxpayer dollars to private prison profiteers).

Further, it is both federal and international law that asylum-seekers must be allowed to seek refuge at the border. Even if it were not a legal requirement, basic decency suggests that desperate people fleeing violence and/or abject poverty should be given an opportunity to apply for residency in a country that can absolutely accommodate them.

Nonetheless, Donald Trump is both exploiting and threatening the refugee caravan on its way to the southern border.

Ted Hesson, Nancy Cook, and Andrew Restuccia at Politico: White House Weighs Executive Actions to Block Migrant Caravan at the Border.

The White House is weighing an executive action and regulatory change to block a caravan of Central American migrants from entering the United States, according to a DHS official, an administration official and three people familiar with the move.

Under the plan, the Trump administration would publish fast-track regulation that would restrict certain migrants' ability to seek asylum. The regulation would be paired with a related proclamation from [Donald] Trump.

The executive actions would follow the playbook of Trump's most sensational immigration moves and test the bounds of public approval and legality, according to those familiar with it.

..."The administration is considering a wide range of administrative, legal and legislative options to address the Democrat-created crisis of mass illegal immigration," a White House official said. "No decisions have been made at this time. Nor will we forecast to smugglers or caravans what precise strategies will or will not be deployed."

...The actions appear to lean on the same statute behind Trump's travel ban, according to those familiar with it. The statute states that the president can suspend entry of foreigners deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States."

The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the third version of the travel ban in June. In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled the president has vast powers in the realm of national security.

...Eleanor Acer, a director with the pro-immigrant Human Rights First, said in a written statement that the plan amounted to a "Latino ban" and would not be judged constitutional in court.

"Any attempt to block from the United States the vulnerable men, women, and children who come here seeking safety is a shameful new low for this administration," she said.

This news, of course, comes one day after the announcement that Trump will deploy "additional U.S. troops to assist in security operations at the southern border in response to a caravan of migrants traveling north on foot through Mexico."

This is ugly. And it's going to get uglier.

Trump warned from Day One that this is what he was going to do if elected president. And far too many people spent far too much time treating him like a joke instead of taking him seriously and taking his threats seriously, including most of the political press. And now here we are. Sob.