White House press secretary Sean Spicer forcefully denied on Friday that the Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border.

'This White House has no plans in any capacity to use the National Guard to round up people,' the White House's principal deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told reporters aboard Air Force One as it flew from Charleston, S.C. to West Palm Beach, Fla.

'This White House and this president has had no plans in any capacity to use the National Guard to round up' immigrants, she said.

Earlier, press secretary Sean Spicer issued a more pointed denial to journalists before the president's plane took off from Joint Base Andrews, near Washington, D.C.

'That is 100 per cent not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this,' Spicer said.

'There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants.'

An 11-page document seen by The Associated Press and later obtained by DailyMail.com calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.

A proposal making the rounds at President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security would identify 11 immigrant-heavy states and ask them to mobilize troops to remove illegal immigrants

National Guardsmen and women could be pressed into service to round up border-jumpers in their own communities if a draft memo were to become Trump administration policy. The Guard have previously been deployed on the border - including in 2010 - by Obama

National deployment: Guardsmen from New York were sent to the border in 2007 to back up the Border Patrol - but the use suggested in the latest report would unprecedented

Show of strength: In 2010 the National Guard was sent to the Californian border to increase patrols over concern about drugs and illegal immigrants streaming through

Immigration protesters are already drawing battle lines against the Trump White House as they fear deportations that would focus only on some parts of existing family units

Marked 'from' Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly – although Sanders insisted that 'Secretary Kelly did not draft that memo' – the draft directs the department to work with governors 'of the States adjacent to the land border with Mexico and those States adjoining such border States.'

That, it says, would allow governors to deputize guard and state militia units 'to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of aliens in the United States.'

Spicer insisted that 'It is not a White House document' but didn't deny it may have come from the DHS. He also conceded that 'I don't know what could potentially be out there' but added that 'I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested.'

Trump's spokesman did not say the idea hasn't been considered. A White House aide confirmed to DailyMail.com Friday morning that the idea 'has been discussed,' but wouldn't say whether a plan has been formalized or recommended to the president.

DailyMail.com's White House source said the idea is to hasten the removal from the U.S. of 'criminal aliens' like those Trump railed against during one campaign stop after another last year.

An executive order the president has signed greatly expands that group and may include people whose only 'crime' was sneaking across the border.

Spicer tweeted before boarding Air Force One on Friday that the AP report 'is not true. DHS also confirms it is 100% false.' He was responding to an Associated Press tweet that said the draft memo 'shows Trump considering mobilizing the National Guard.'

Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan told DailyMail.com and other outlets on Friday: 'It's incorrect. The Department is not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement.'

Separately, a DHS official said: 'The report referenced by the AP was a very early, pre-decisional draft that never made it to the secretary and was never seriously considered by the Department.'

This language from the draft memo directs DHS to work with governors to deputize National Guard troops so they can become de facto immigration enforcers

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied the report forcefully, calling it 'false' and the AP 'irresponsible'

President Trump's spokesman tweeted that the AP's story is 'not true' and said the Department of Homeland Security has denied it as well

Under the reported plan, governors in states nowhere near the Mexican border could call up National Guard troops

But the AP reported Friday that '[t]he draft document has circulated among DHS staff over the last two weeks. As recently as Friday, staffers in several different offices reported discussions were underway.'

And the liberal website Vox published a copy of what it said was the memo on Friday, lending the story credence.

Four states that border on Mexico are included in the draft proposal – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four: Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS The memo appearing to be 'from' Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly includes this language that would authorize governors to mobilize National Guard units to apprehend and detain illegal immigrants: 'I am directing the Commissioner of CBP and the Director of ICE to immediately engage with the Governors of the States adjacent to the land border with Mexico and those States adjoining such border States for the purpose of entering into agreements under section 287(g) of the INA to authorize qualified members of the State National Guard, while such members are not in federal service, or qualified members of a state militia or state defense force under the command of the Governor, to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of aliens in the United States.' Advertisement

Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.

While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with immigration-related missions on the U.S.-Mexico border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north.

The memo is addressed to the then-acting heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

It would serve as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders.

Also dated Jan. 25, the draft memo says participating troops would be authorized 'to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension and detention of aliens in the United States.'

It describes how the troops would be activated under a revived state-federal partnership program, and states that personnel would be authorized to conduct searches and identify and arrest any illegal immigrants.

The AP's requests to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment and a status report on the proposal were not answered before it published its report.

It's unclear who wrote the memo draft, but it was prepared for DHS Secretary John Kelly to issue under his own name

Trump tweeted last weekend that removing 'illegal criminals' is in line with campaign promises he made repeatedly last year

If implemented, the impact could be significant. Nearly one-half of the 11.1 million people residing in the U.S. without authorization live in the 11 states, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on 2014 Census data.

Use of National Guard troops would greatly increase the number of immigrants targeted in one of Trump's executive orders last month, which expanded the definition of who could be considered a criminal and therefore a potential target for deportation.

That order also allows immigration agents to prioritize removing anyone who has 'committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.'

Under current rules, even if the proposal is implemented, there would not be immediate mass deportations. Those with existing deportation orders could be sent back to their countries of origin without additional court proceedings. But deportation orders generally would be needed for most other illegal immigrants.

The troops would not be nationalized, remaining under state control.

Spokespeople for the governors of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and New Mexico said they were unaware of the proposal, and either declined to comment or said it was premature to discuss whether they would participate. The other three states did not immediately respond to the AP.

The news unfolded as Trump prepared to leave for Charleston, S.C. where he will make an afternoon appearance at a Boeing plant; he's seen walking grandchildren Arabella Kushner (L) and Joseph Kushner to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House

In this Feb. 24, 2015, file photo, members of the National Guard patrol along the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico border in Rio Grande City, Texas

The proposal would extend the federal-local partnership program that President Barack Obama's administration began scaling back in 2012 to address complaints that it promoted racial profiling.

The 287(g) program, which Trump included in his immigration executive order, gives local police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers the authority to assist in the detection of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as a regular part of their law enforcement duties on the streets and in jails.

The draft memo also mentions other items included in Trump's executive order, including the hiring of an additional 5,000 border agents, which needs financing from Congress, and his campaign promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

According to its wording, the militarization effort would be proactive, specifically empowering Guard troops to solely carry out immigration enforcement, not as an add-on the way local law enforcement is used in the program.

Allowing Guard troops to operate inside non-border states also would go far beyond past deployments.

In addition to responding to natural or man-made disasters or for military protection of the population or critical infrastructure, state Guard forces have been used to assist with immigration-related tasks on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the construction of fences.

In the mid-2000s, President George W. Bush twice deployed Guard troops on the border to focus on non-law enforcement duties to help augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. And in 2010, then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced a border security plan that included Guard reconnaissance, aerial patrolling and military exercises.

In July 2014, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to the border when the surge of migrant children fleeing violence in Central America overwhelmed U.S. officials responsible for their care. The Guard troops' stated role on the border at the time was to provide extra sets of eyes but not make arrests.

Bush initiated the federal 287(g) program - named for a section of a 1996 immigration law - to allow specially trained local law enforcement officials to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and check whether people held in local jails were in the country illegally. ICE trained and certified roughly 1,600 officers to carry out those checks from 2006 to 2015.

The memo describes the program as a 'highly successful force multiplier' that identified more than 402,000 'removable aliens.'

But federal watchdogs were critical of how DHS ran the program, saying it was poorly supervised and provided insufficient training to officers, including on civil rights law. Obama phased out all the arrest power agreements in 2013 to instead focus on deporting recent border crossers and immigrants in the country illegally who posed a safety or national security threat.

Trump's immigration strategy emerges as detentions at the nation's southern border are down significantly from levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Last year, the arrest tally was the fifth-lowest since 1972. Deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally also increased under the Obama administration, though Republicans criticized Obama for setting prosecution guidelines that spared some groups from the threat of deportation, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Last week, ICE officers arrested more than 680 people around the country in what Kelly said were routine, targeted operations; advocates called the actions stepped-up enforcement under Trump.