Donald Trump is threatening to deploy the US military and close the southern border with Mexico if a convoy of migrants from Central America is allowed to keep moving northwards.

The group of would-be immigrants, which has now grown to as many as 4,000 people, left Honduras and plans to head through Mexico toward the US border, infuriating Trump.

The presidentmade his threats in a series of tweets early on Thursday morning, demanding that the Mexican government turn around the convoy.

“I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!” he said.

Trump has previously threatened to cut off millions of dollars in aid to Honduras, a plan he reiterated on Thursday, saying he was “stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population”.

The Mexican government has said it intends to deport people who enter the country illegally, though they have the right to apply for asylum, and sent 500 federal policy to its border with Guatemala to prepare for the group’s arrival, NBC News reported.

Trump has portrayed the caravan of migrants, which includes many families traveling with children and fleeing poverty or gang violence, as a threat to the United States.

It would take several weeks for the group to travel to the US border. Trump made a similar threat to cut off aid to Honduras over another caravan of migrants in the spring, which was never carried out.

It was unclear how he intends to close the entire US-Mexico border and he already earlier this year called up some military units to do border security. There are currently US troops deployed on the frontier with Mexico, with national guard members from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California working on border security.

“I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S.,” Trump tweeted on Thursday.

No evidence has emerged of criminal affiliations among the migrants. Some have said they are fleeing gang violence, and are traveling as a group for protection from criminal gangs.

Trump has frequently portrayed undocumented immigrants to the US as a criminal threat and in league with Democrats – a tactic also adopted by many Republican candidates in the ongoing midterm election campaign.

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found a stark divide on the issue: among voters who support a Republican candidate for Congress, 75% called illegal immigration a “very big” problem, making it the highest-ranked national problem for GOP voters.

By contrast, only 19% of voters backing the Democratic congressional candidate rated illegal immigration a very big problem. Democrats were more likely to rank affordable healthcare and gun violence as major problems. A 57% majority of Democratic voters also said that the way people in the country are treated is a very big problem, compared to just 15% of those voting Republican.

The latest statistics show that the number of families crossing the border with children has surged to record levels, the Washington Post reported. Border patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, which is the highest total ever for one month and an 80% increase since July.

But overall figures for illegal entry from Mexico are much lower than in previous periods. During the 2018 fiscal year, agents arrested 396,579 people along the border, a 30% increase since 2017 – which had the lowest illegal immigration numbers in the last 56 years.

“The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA,” Trump tweeted, referring to a trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada. “Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border. All Democrats fault for weak laws!”

(Published by The Guardian, October 18, 2018)