The proposal included 11 states. Four of those border Mexico. They are California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The other seven states are further north. They are Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Governors in all 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, the memo said.

The memo was written by Mr Trump's US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.

Speaking on board Marine One Mr Spicer vehemently denied there was any plan to mobilise the National Guard.

He said: "It is irresponsible to be saying this. There is no effort at all to round up, to utilise the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants."

It came as the Kremlin has responded to Mr Trump's wild 75-minute press conference on Thursday by ordering state-owned television to stop broadcasting coverage of the US president.

It was the latest signal that Russia is losing confidence that friendly relations could be established with the US under Mr Trump.

Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin's spokesman, said: "We never wore rose-tinted glasses, never had any illusions."

In a wild press conference on Thursday Mr Trump accused the media of undermining his attempts to establish friendly relations with Mr Putin.

Mr Trump has declared the extraordinary press conference, which lasted for more than an hour, one of the "greatest ever".

"Fake media not happy!" he tweeted in the early hours of Friday morning.