Trump and White House aide Stephen Miller are engaging “in a desperate attempt to point the finger at ‘the other,’” immigrant rights advocate Frank Sharry said. “They do so to distract voters from their deadly failure to protect the American people. They do so to score points with the core supporters who they count on in 2020. This is a nasty move by a nasty White House as they gear up to run the nastiest campaign in American history. And with refugees and immigrants, there is no bottom. Put the two together and you get tonight’s news of a southern border asylum ban.”

NBC News reports an announcement on this proposal could come in the next two days, but there are already serious issues regarding this reported plan, CNN said: “It has run into opposition from several government agencies, in part because of concerns that it would violate US and international law, including treaties on how to deal with refugees and victims of torture. Officials are working on a plan to deny entry to all asylum seekers, according to multiple sources. That may include a plan to return all illegal border crossers without due process.”

But since when has the administration cared about due process and about returning people to danger? U.S. officials have already forced tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait out their immigration court cases in Mexico, in a despicable policy that some U.S. asylum officers have quit over rather than help enforce. In publicly announcing his resignation last year, asylum officer Doug Stephens told the Los Angeles Times that Remain In Mexico is “literally sending people back to be raped and killed. That’s what this is.”

“Rather than account and correct for the Administration’s initial disastrous response on the current pandemic, Trump continues to try and shift focus to the Southern border and uses inflammatory language to describe the virus,” immigrant rights advocacy group Immigration Hub said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “Meanwhile, the administration is continuing business as usual with their anti-immigrant agenda and cruel enforcement operations, leaving immigrants, immigration judges, government officials and the public at greater risk.”