‘I’ll send 15,000 troops’: Trump ramps up call to arms

Donald Trump has threatened to send up to 15,000 US troops to the Mexican border.

A mother in the migrant caravan feeds her baby while resting at a makeshift camp in Juchitan, Mexico, this week. Picture: Reuters

Donald Trump has threatened to send up to 15,000 US troops to the Mexican border to help prevent a migrant caravan from entering the country, in a dramatic toughening of border security policies ahead of the mid-term elections.

“We’re getting prepared for the caravan folks,” the US President said yesterday, as he foreshadowed a troop deployment that could exceed what America has fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq

“As far as the caravan, which is very dangerous — our military is out. We have about 5800. We’ll go up anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of Border Patrol, ICE, and everybody else at the border. They’ve got a lot of rough people in that caravan, they are not angels.

“Immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous — a really dangerous — topic, and we’re not going to allow people to come into our country that don’t have the wellbeing of our country in mind.”

Two caravans of about 7000 migrants are slowly making their way through Mexico towards the US border, as the country is prepari­ng for mid-term elections dominated by immigration and border security.

US army sappers take an Air Force C-130J Super Hercules from Fort Knox, Kentucky, to the Mexican border yesterday. Picture: AFP

Democrats have accused the President of cynically playing up the dangers posed by the caravan and deploying troops in an ­attempt to fire up his Republican base ahead of the elections next Wednesday (Tuesday, US time).

Earlier this week, Mr Trump said he planned to send 5200 troops to the southern border to support border guards when the migrant caravan tries to cross the US border. Under US law, the milit­ary cannot arrest or deport migrants, but can provide support to border security agents.

But the President denied that he was pulling a pre-election stunt to help Republicans retain control of congress in next week’s poll.

“No, I’m not fear-mongering at all. Immigration is a very important subject. The Democrats have let immigration in our country get out of control,” he said.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis also denied that the deployment was a stunt.

“The support that we provide to the Secretary for Homeland Securit­y is practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police, so we don’t do stunts in this department,” Mr Mattis said.

Mr Trump defended yesterday his contentious claim this week that he could overturn by executive order the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which automatically allows a child of an ­illegal immigrant to become a US citizen if they are born in the US.

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essenti­ally a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits,” Mr Trump said on Wednesd­ay. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

But Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said Mr Trump would be breaching the constitution to try to make such a change by executive order without congressional approval.

“You obviously cannot do that,” Senator Ryan said.

“I’m a believer in following the plain text of the constitution, and I think in this case the 14th amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process.”

Mr Trump hit back at his Republican colleague yesterday, sayin­g: “Paul Ryan should be focusi­ng on holding the majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!’

“So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other,” he tweeted.

The President disputed that such a move would require a two-thirds majority of congress to amend the constitution.

“You don’t need a Constitutional amendment for birthright citizenship,” he said.