Trump to talk on immigration Thursday afternoon

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The White House is weighing options to limit asylum seekers’ entry into the U.S.

President Donald Trump is planning to deliver remarks about immigration on Thursday afternoon before leaving for a rally in Missouri, the White House said, in his latest attempt to stoke fear about migrants entering the United States ahead of the midterm election.

The Trump administration is weighing a series of policy options to limit asylum seekers’ ability to enter the United States. It’s unclear whether the president will unveil a new proposal on Thursday, though a person closely following the issue said the speech is expected to focus on asylum.

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Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump will address the “illegal immigration crisis and give an update on border security,” during “brief remarks” at 4:15 p.m. from the White house.

White House officials had initially been planning a high-profile immigration-focused speech this week, but the mass shooting in Pittsburgh upended those plans. Still, Trump has pounced on a caravan of Central American migrants that is slowly making its way to the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to rally his base ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. In recent days, he has floated the idea of issuing an executive order to end birthright citizenship, a proposal that experts say wouldn’t survive legal challenges.

Additionally, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security are considering an executive action and a regulatory change that would restrict certain migrants’ ability to seek asylum.

One former government official said there were “lots of rumblings from the White House” that Trump would use his remarks to unveil such an action, but it remained unknown as of midday Thursday whether that was actually the case.

Trump has come under criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his unsubstantiated claims about the migrant caravan, casting the group of people as an “invasion” and warning without evidence that the group contains gang members and “unknown Middle Easterners.”

He has also deployed more than 5,200 troops to the border, and told reporters Wednesday that he may increase that number to 15,000.

Gabby Orr contribtued to this report.