Migrant caravan: Asylum seekers travel through Mexico as Trump walks back suggestion that migrants throwing stones will be shot at border
Critics say the president is stoking fears about the caravan for political reasons ahead of midterm elections
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Your support makes all the difference.Thousands of refugees and migrants from Central America are walking and hitchhiking northwards through Mexico, with Donald Trump walking back his suggestion that any migrants found throwing stones at the US border could be shot by the military.
In addition to this original group, more than 1,000 migrants in a second caravan that forced its way across the river from Guatemala have begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula.
President Trump made clear Thursday he will do everything in his power to stop them, dispatching extra troops, threatening to shut border entirely and saying in an afternoon press conference the military would consider rocks thrown at active troops "firearms". He later said that no migrants would be shot by the American military, but that anyone throwing rocks would be arrested.
The issue is being amplified by the president with less than a week before the midterm elections, and various sources have implied or stated without proof that Democrats and progressive donors are somehow funding the caravan that is composed of individuals and families fleeing dangerous conditions in their home countries in Central America. Others, including Mr Trump, have claimed — again, without proof — that the caravan includes "Middle Easterners". The president also indicated that he has no proof that Middle Easterners are in the caravan.
While numerous news outlets and watchdog groups have tried and failed to find proof for those claims — and none has been provided — Republicans clearly see a winning strategy in trying to tie Democrats to the caravan.
In the contentious Texas Senate race, for example, Senator Ted Cruz has attacked his Democratic opponent, Congressman Beto O'Rourke, and claimed that his campaign has been funding the migrant caravan. That statement was not substantiated with evidence that any of that financial support has occurred.
To see how the day unfolded, follow our live blog below.
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The context behind those remarks is that Mr Ryan said on Tuesday that Mr Trump "obviously cannot" end birthright citizen by executive order. He made the point that Republicans would have been very angry if former President Barack Obama had tried something unilaterally like that.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has rejected criticism that deploying thousands of troops to the border with Mexico was a political stunt, amid criticism that President Donald Trump was politicising the issue of the migrant caravan with less than a week until midterm elections.
"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 after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon.
Fox News anchor Shep Smith is earning praise from Democrats and independents, including Bernie Sanders, for undercutting some of the rhetoric out of the White House and Mr Trump's favourite channel.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, has hit back at President Trump's effort to nix birthright citizenship as “profoundly wrong” after the president singled out a 1993 speech Mr Reid.
“This president wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong,” Mr Reid said in a statement.
As for the decision to send the military to the border - a break with recent past practice - it has been cheered by a number of Republicans, but subject to fierce criticism from many.
"The move to send 5,200 active duty troops to the southern border is a craven political stunt that sets a bad precedent and is arguably an abuse of power," Kelly Magsamen, a former senior Pentagon official, said. She is currently with the Center for the think tank American Progress.
Elsewhere, Austria will follow the United States and Hungary in backing out of a United Nations migration pact over concerns it will blur the line between legal and illegal migration, the right-wing government said on Wednesday.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 member nations except the United States, which backed out last year.
Hungary's right-wing government has since said it will not sign the final document at a ceremony in Morocco in December. Poland, which has also clashed with Brussels by resisting national quotas for asylum seekers, has said it is considering the same step.
Local government officials in Mexico have estimated the number of people currently in the caravan as near-6,000.
Newsweek are reporting that the cost of the military deployment to the border over the migrant caravan could be as much as $50m
"This will be the election of the Kavanaughs and the caravans and law and order and tax cuts," Donald Trump told a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 26 October.
There is no doubt the caravan will come up during a rally stop for the president in Florida tonight.
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