Trump mulls pulling immigration agents from California
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he may pull the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency out of California, an idea so unlikely that some of his staunchest critics dismissed it as an empty taunt against the state over immigration policies.
Withdrawing ICE, partially or completely, runs counter to Trump's record of dramatically increasing deportation arrests and pledging to beef up the agency with an additional 10,000 employees. The administration has been threatening more—not less—immigration enforcement in California in response to a new state law that sharply limits cooperation with federal authorities.
The president's suggestion, however impractical, was his latest attention-grabbing statement to pressure so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions, which the administration claims are a magnet for immigrants who commit crimes.
"Frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California you would have a crime nest like you've never seen in California," he said during a meeting with state and local officials on school safety and gun violence. "All I'd have to do is say is, 'ICE and Border Patrol, let California alone,' you'd be inundated. You would see crime like nobody has ever seen crime in this country."
"If we ever pulled our ICE out, and we ever said, 'Hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves,' in two months they'd be begging for us to come back. They would be begging. And you know what, I'm thinking about doing it," he continued.
