President Trump said Friday that he is strongly considering placing illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities, taking reports that his administration had briefly considered such a move a step further.
“We’ll give them to the sanctuary cities, maybe, to take care of if that’s the way they want it, because we can only hold them under the current law for 20 days,” the president said at the White House.
“We’ll bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it, whether it’s a state or whatever it might be,” Trump said. “California certainly is always saying, ‘Oh, we want more people.’ And they want more people in their sanctuary cities. Well, we’ll give them more people. We can give them a lot. We can give them an unlimited supply, and let’s see if they’re so happy.”
The president put pressure on Democrats, many of whom have expressed support for sanctuary cities, to either accept the immigrants with “open arms” or fix problematic immigration laws.
“They’re always saying they have open arms. Let’s see if they have open arms,” he said. “The alternative is to change the laws. We can do it very, very quickly, very easily.”
Earlier on Friday, the president tweeted about the policy suggestion.
“Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only,” the president tweeted.
“The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy – so this should make them very happy!”
….The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy – so this should make them very happy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019
White House officials floated the idea of releasing detained immigrants onto the streets of sanctuary cities to target Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, a sanctuary city.
The proposal was met with resistance from a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who cited budgetary and liability concerns, as well as “PR risks.”
Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser who favors limits on immigration, was involved in the proposal.
In a statement, the White House attempted to downplay the proposal, which was met with swift criticism from Democrats. “This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion,” the White House said.
[Opinion: Shouldn’t Nancy Pelosi want detainees released into her sanctuary city?]
