President Trump labeled the border situation an “invasion” on Monday and said he will respond with a new national emergency declaration that will attempt to block all unauthorized entries.

Speaking moments after his swearing-in to a second term, the president put the border as his first priority, vowing a total rewrite of the policies under President Biden that invited four years of record illegal immigration.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the place from which they came,” Mr. Trump said.

He also said he will revive his Remain in Mexico policy, which helped solve a previous migrant surge in 2019 and stop the automatic catch-and-release of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants nabbed at the border every year.

Mr. Trump said he would flex the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to “eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks” and declare the smuggling cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations.

He also said he would deploy troops to “repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

The Biden administration had resisted calling the border a “crisis,” much less an invasion.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.