A family of Mexican asylum seekers walks to the center of the international bridge between Mexico and the United States to officially request political asylum from US immigration officials on December 8, 2019, in the Mexican border town of Matamoros.  | John Moore/Getty Images

President Trump’s election-year push to foreground immigration is officially in full swing.

The Trump administration has proposed a regulation that would deliver its biggest blow to the US asylum system yet, vastly expanding immigration officials’ authority to turn away migrants. If enacted, it would all but close America’s doors to asylum seekers — a signature policy for a president desperately trying to rally his base in an election year.

The regulation, which was announced Wednesday, would allow immigration officials to discard asylum seekers’ applications as “frivolous” without so much as a hearing, and make it impossible for victims