WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum — two legally dubious proposals that mark his latest election-season barrage against illegal immigration. “This is an invasion,” Trump declared as he has previously on a subject that has been shown to resonate strongly with his base of Republican supporters. He made his comments at the White House in a speech that was billed as a response to groups of migrants walking toward the U.S. border.

He then left for an evening political rally in Missouri, the latest in a daily series he has scheduled leading up to next Tuesday’s elections for control of Congress. U.S. immigration 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 U.S. also doesn’t have space at the border to manage the large-scale detention of migrants, with most facilities at capacity. But Trump said the government would erect “massive tents.”

“We’re stopping people at the border,” he said firmly.

His announcement marked Trump’s latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration front-and-center in the final stretch before next Tuesday’s elections.

Notably, he said his executive order would come next week, which means it could be after Election Day. Trump also said that he had told the U.S. military mobilizing at the southwest border that if U.S. troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were “rifles.”

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. At any rate, they are not expected to be in positions where anyone trying to storm across the border would quickly come in contact with them.

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.

President Donald Trump talks about immigration and gives an update Thursday on border security from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington.

the associated press