Conservative political commentator Ann Coulter has suggested that the U.S. military should invade Mexico to stop Central American migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. from reaching the U.S. border.
Coulter made the comments on the October 26 edition of the The Ingraham Angle on Fox News. She told host Laura Ingraham that there were several options available to President Donald Trump for halting the migrant caravan which crossed into southern Mexico last week.
"There's so many things the President can do besides build the wall himself, he is the Commander-in Chief," Coulter said in the segment, as reported by Media Matters. "The military can't really do anything standing on our side of the border. What are they going to do, shoot the invaders?
"But they could invade, they could go in ten yards into Mexico. We didn't ask for Iraq's approval to go in, we didn't ask for Afghanistan's approval to go in. Other than sitting on oil, most of these Middle Eastern countries, they're not going to kill Americans."
Earlier this year, Coulter seemingly endorsed the killing of Palestinians at the Gaza border fence by Israeli forces, suggesting that the U.S. military should take a similarly violent approach to stopping migrants from entering the country.
"Can we do that?" she wrote on Twitter on May 14, commenting on a New York Times article titled "Israel responded with rifle fire to a mass attempt by Palestinians to cross a border fence, killing at least 28, Palestinian officials said."
Can we do that? https://t.co/yVOYYEdZYB
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) May 14, 2018
The caravan—which consists of approximately 7,000 migrants, according to the U.N.—has been making its way through Mexico after setting off from Honduras several weeks ago. Currently, it is about 1,000 miles away from the closest U.S.-Mexico border crossing in McAllen, Texas, although its destination remains unclear. Many of the migrants are seeking to escape violence as well as economic and political instability in their home countries.
The Trump administration has warned of a "crisis" at the border with the president calling on the caravan to turn around. Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said that the U.S. was doing "everything we can" to protect its ports of entry at the southern border "and the people who work at them. We're waiting to see what the caravan's gonna do, what numbers are looking like, where they're headed," Nielsen told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Thursday.
Two officials told AFP on Thursday that around 800 troops are expected to be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border. When Nielsen was asked by MacCallum if she could foresee any interactions between migrants and military troops turning violent, Nielsen said: "We do not have any intention right now to shoot at people. They will be apprehended, however."
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