When a report emerged Thursday night that the Trump administration had twice considered releasing detained undocumented immigrants into sanctuary cities represented by the president’s political enemies, the White House insisted Stephen Miller’s fever dream had been relegated to the trash heap: “This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion,” its statement said. Then Donald Trump chimed in. “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,” he tweeted Friday afternoon. “The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy—so this should make them very happy!”

Prior to the president’s tweets, The Washington Post had reported that the White House had asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to look into the possibility twice in the past six months—first in November 2018, as a large migrant caravan wound its way through Central America, then during the February shutdown over the border wall. In both instances, Trump officials made it clear that they were partially motivated by a desire to retaliate against the Democrats, and especially salivated over the thought of releasing undocumented migrants in Nancy Pelosi’s California district. As a White House official remarked to NBC’s Hallie Jackson on Friday morning, “Why wouldn’t we send them to districts where Democrats say ‘we want ‘em?’”

ICE refused in both cases, citing the obvious logistical, legal, budgetary, and publicity pitfalls, and two whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security soon alerted Congress to the proposal. It was immediately clear who was behind the scheme: “It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out,” one congressional investigator told the Post. “What happened here is that Stephen Miller called people at ICE, said if they’re going to cut funding, you’ve got to make sure you’re releasing people in Pelosi’s district and other congressional districts.”

By all accounts, Miller’s entreaties failed. Yet Trump’s explicit endorsement, combined with an unnerving series of firings at D.H.S. reportedly engineered by the anti-immigration hardliner, inspired a flurry of concerned responses. “I don’t know anything about it,” Pelosi told reporters Friday, “but again, it’s just another notion that is 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.” Her deputy Steny Hoyer was more vocal: “That you could use ICE—or any other federal agency—to penalize or to visit retribution for political reasons, that’s not the act of a democratic government.”

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