House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was really unhappy about a proposed plan to bus illegal immigrants to her district, but why should she be?

Here's what happened: Anonymous "Department of Homeland Security officials," according to the post, leaked a plan to send migrants to sanctuary jurisdictions on Thursday.

The White House responded that the idea was "just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion."

Speaker Pelosi's San Francisco district was one of the recommended busing areas, and she wasn't too pleased with the news.

"The extent of this administration's cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated," a Pelosi spokeswoman said. "Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable."

Later, a White House official was quoted as saying that the idea was more about shifting the burden away from border towns: “Why wouldn’t we send them to districts where Democrats say ‘we want ‘em?’”

Indeed, why shouldn't sanctuary jurisdictions and politicians like Pelosi who represent them want apprehended illegal immigrants sent their way? Look, aren't sanctuary cities supposed to be, well, sanctuaries for illegal aliens?

The president's political opponents can impart motives and criticize his actions all day long. They already do. But if the proponents of lax border security and liberal immigration policy really cared about the well-being of illegal aliens, shouldn't they be clamoring to have every apprehended migrant sent immediately to a jurisdiction where they'd be the most insulated from deportation?

Other options would be to release them to places where they have a higher chance of getting detained and deported by federal authorities at some point in the future or to continue detaining them in facilities that Democratic rhetoric has thus far painted as modern-day gulags.

Why not send them to a place that's more welcoming to them in both its laws and its local attitudes? Detractors can complain all they want about the motives involved, but how can they argue the outcomes here?

Could it possibly be that backlash against this proposal could be coming from the realization that a plan like this would put a huge burden on sanctuary cities that could even result in a shift in public attitudes about illegal immigration?

Pelosi might realize that adding a large influx of illegal immigrants to her home city of San Francisco's homeless, drug, and fecal matter problems might be too much for the city to handle. And that would, in turn, simultaneously put pressure on sanctuary politicians who would have to acknowledge that we're currently facing a crisis at the border.

But let's leave the assumption of motives up to others.