Trump Reportedly Considering Travel Ban-Style Proposal to Block Asylum-Seekers at U.S.-Mexico Border 

As the Trump administration gears up to send 800 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, Donald Trump is reportedly considering imposing a ban on asylum-seekers. The proposed executive action would be similar to the anti-Muslim travel-ban, which was blocked by federal courts until the Supreme Court upheld a watered down, third version of the ban.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

“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 on condition of anonymity. “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.”

That “White House official” sure sounds like Stephen Miller, the racist architect of the travel ban, but what do I know.

The proposal is still in its “formative stages,” per the Chronicle, but suggests that Trump, who has described migrants and asylum-seekers in racist, hateful terms, is planning to escalate his ongoing attack on immigrants.

Here’s how the order would work:

First, Homeland Security and the Justice Department would issue a rule limiting immigrants’ ability to seek asylum if they are part of a population barred by the president. The rule would take effect immediately, unlike most, and be justified as an extraordinary situation.

That would clear the way for Trump to issue a proclamation directed at a specific population, expected to target the 7,000-plus Central Americans heading toward the U.S.

Trump has called the caravan of Central American migrants headed to the border an “assault” on the United States and falsely claimed they were filled with “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.”

“I hate taking these people,” Trump told Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, talking about immigrants and refugees. “I guarantee you they are bad.”

Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have already made it much, much harder to claim asylum in the United States, a policy driven by racism and xenophobia.