Democrats are fuming over President Trump’s consideration of a plan to move asylum seekers to “sanctuary cities” as a form of political retribution.
Top Democratic lawmakers were quick to criticize the morality of the proposal, while also saying it’s hard to take it seriously.
{mosads}”You have policymakers at the highest levels throwing tantrums,” said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee. “I can’t even begin to address this issue.”
The proposal, first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday, was floated by White House officials to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
President Trump on Friday confirmed the proposal in a tweet, saying, “we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities.”
White House officials in November and February tried unsuccessfully to pressure DHS officials to release thousands of detainees in small and mid-sized “sanctuary cities” as a form of political pressure against Democrats, the Post reported.
“This reflects how much policymakers at the highest level of a government don’t understand what they’re dealing with,” Correa said before Trump’s tweet. “When they say they’re going to punish sanctuary states, don’t they understand these workers are needed in this economy?”
Correa said he would consult with House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) on how the panel could respond to the proposal.
Thompson accused the administration of “playing politics with the country’s homeland security.”
“The fact that this idea was even considered — not once but twice — 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,” said Thompson in a statement Friday before Trump weighed in on the matter.
The White House had told the Post that the proposal “was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion.”
Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Matthew Albence, then the acting deputy director of the agency, flatly rejected the proposal in November, arguing the expenditure of shuttling immigrants set for release was unjustified, according to the Post.
DHS has undergone a leadership overhaul in recent days, leading to Albence’s promotion. The changes came about, in large part, due to differences in opinion between Trump and former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
“Why did Secretary Nielsen get fired? She disagreed with the president on following the law,” said Correa. “Does that mean that whenever people at Homeland want to follow the law, they get fired?”
Correa also praised the individuals who leaked documents about the White House’s consideration of the proposal.
“We want whistleblowers in government because we want our concerned workers, our concerned citizens, to stand up and say, ‘something is going wrong,'” said Correa. “Whoever it is that leaked this stuff, I just want to thank them.”