WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday he is considering releasing illegal immigrants into strongholds of Democrats to punish congressional foes for inaction on the U.S.-Mexico border.
White House and Homeland Security officials said hours earlier that the idea had been rejected as fast as it had been proposed.
“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,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.
“The radical left always seems to have an open borders, open arms policy — so this should make them very happy!” he wrote.
Critics accused the Trump Administration of turning migrants into pawns to go after political opponents.
The President last week urged his soon-to-be acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan to seal the southern border and told Mr. McAleenan he would pardon him if he got in trouble for blocking legal asylum-seekers, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not clear whether the President was joking.
“At no time has the President indicated, asked, directed, or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal,” a Homeland Security spokesman said.
The reported conversation occurred during the President’s trip last week to Calexico, Calif., one day after he delayed his threat to close the border because Mexico appeared to be stepping up its enforcement efforts.
Before Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security and a White House official had insisted that the sanctuary-cities plan had been floated but rejected.
Asked about the plan by reporters, the President said he was “strongly looking at” releasing migrant families into those communities.
“They’re always saying they have open arms. Let’s see if they have open arms,” he said.
There were no indications, however, that officials are taking any steps to move forward with the idea.
“Sanctuary cities” are places where local authorities do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, denying information or resources that would help ICE round up for deportation people living in the country illegally.
They include New York City and San Francisco, home city of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who on Friday called the idea “unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges that we face as a country, as a people, to address who we are — a nation of immigrants.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, said it “serves as a reminder that the Trump Administration’s reckless immigration agenda is not about keeping the country safe, but about partisan politics and wantonly inflicting cruelty. “
A surge of migrant families at the border has been taxing the system, and ICE says it no longer has the resources to handle immigrants processed by the Border Patrol.
As a result, more than 125,000 people have been released as they await court hearings — a practice Mr. Trump has derided as “catch and release.”
In southern Mexico, authorities said a group of about 350 migrants broke the locks on a border gate Friday and forced their way into Mexico to join a larger group of migrants making their way toward the United States.
A similar confrontation occurred on the same border bridge between Mexico and Guatemala last year.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said the migrants were acting in a “hostile” and “aggressive” way and accused them of also attacking local police in Metapa, a Mexican village that lies between the border and the nearby city of Tapachula.
The group of 350 pushed past police guarding the bridge and joined a larger group of about 2,000 migrants who are walking toward Tapachula in the latest caravan to enter Mexico.
There are already several groups of migrants in the southern border state of Chiapas who have expressed frustration at Mexico’s policy of slowing or stopping the process of handing out humanitarian and exit visas at the border.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence told CNN that the Trump Administration will not return to separating families at the border as a way of deterring illegal immigration.
“The President made it very clear this week, we’re not rethinking bringing back family separation,” Mr. Pence told CNN’s Dana Bash.
“The President made it clear a year ago: We ended family separation, and we’re not considering going back to it,” Mr. Pence said.
In New York, a second U.S. judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from forcing tens of thousands of Haitians to return to their native country.
U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz issued a nationwide injunction Thursday preventing the department from terminating Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
Judge Kuntz ruled on a lawsuit filed by Haitians in Florida and New York that challenged the Trump Administration’s decision to end the status granted to Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.
The trial in federal court in Brooklyn stemmed from one of seven lawsuits filed by immigrants and advocates over the 2017 move to end the program.
The program has allowed about 300,000 people from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Sudan, and other countries to stay in the United States for years following natural disasters or violence in their home countries.
First Published April 13, 2019, 4:51 a.m.
