President Donald Trump threatened Friday to punish his political enemies by releasing detained immigrants into their sanctuary towns and cities _ a proposal critics slammed as offensive and irrational.
Completely contradicting two statements issued by his own administration, Trump said the immigrant-bashing plan was being actively floated as a way to stick it to "The Radical Left."
"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," Trump tweeted from California, where he spent the day touring a section of the U.S.-Mexico border. "The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy _ so this should make them very happy!"
The Washington Post first reported late Thursday that the administration was mulling the plan, but the White House and the Department of Homeland Security pushed back, claiming the policy was no longer under consideration.
"This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion," the White House said in a statement.
A White House spokesman did not return a request for clarity Friday afternoon. A spokesman for DHS declined to comment.
Unless they can be quickly deported, immigrants detained for being in the U.S. illegally have to by law be released, except in cases where violent crimes are involved.
Generally, detainees are able to settle wherever they want while awaiting deportations or court decisions.
But Trump's plan would mandate they can only move to "sanctuary" jurisdictions _ states and cities where politicians have pledged to not cooperate with federal authorities trying to deport undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
New York City is such a sanctuary.
"Trump has yet again proven that the only constant in his immigration policy is cruelty," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in response to Trump's "sanctuary" threat. "He uses people like pawns. New York City will always be the ultimate city of immigrants _ the president's empty threats won't change that."
Advocates were stunned by the way in which Trump appeared to equate immigrants with danger, especially considering U.S. citizens statistically commit more crimes than immigrants.
"It's a bizarre, outlandish notion and one that really doesn't make any sense except that it's consistent with this administration's unserious approach to these very important questions of how you deal with people who come here," said Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's immigrants' rights project. "It's impulsive, irrational and dehumanizing."
The confusing rollout of Trump's controversial policy comes as he remains frustrated with not being able to fulfill some of his most inflammatory campaign promises, including building a massive wall on the Mexican border and ending the policy he refers to as a "catch and release."
As Congress and courts keep rejecting his policies, Trump has taken to venting his anger internally.
Over the past week, the president has purged his Homeland Security Department, replacing Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, pulling his nominee to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ousting the head of the U.S. Secret Service and promising to move in a "tougher" direction.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the New York Daily News that the abrupt shakeup has left the various agencies operating under the DHS umbrella "confused" and "broken in half."
Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported this week that more than 53,000 migrant families were apprehended at the southern border in March, the highest number recorded in a single month since the agency began tracking that figure in 2012. A majority of the migrants are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America in hopes of finding better lives in the U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi _ whose Democratic district in San Francisco is among the sanctuary jurisdictions that would be targeted by Trump's plan _ ripped the proposal as another sign of the president's unfitness for office and failure to meet the "challenges that we face" as "a nation of immigrants."
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, drew a line between Trump's retaliatory sanctuary proposal and the DHS staff shakeup and said they show the administration's "reckless" agenda isn't about "keeping the country safe, but about partisan politics" and "cruelty."
"If your immigration policies are not fixing the problem but only cause chaos and focus on keeping people out, they will always fail," Thompson said in a statement. "Playing politics with the country's homeland security has been a mainstay of the Trump administration since day one. The American people want it to end."
