Reports have been emerging from Washington that presidential aides are considering a plan to release migrants in sanctuary cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.
On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced that his White House was weighing a plan to pressure US immigration authorities to release people detained at the border in so-called sanctuary cities, which historically limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. His statement contradicts that made by the Department of Homeland Security which told reporters it had previously rejected such a plan.
That the Trump administration should view such a step as a punitive rather than a welcome one was shown as further evidence of his hardline stance on immigration as it would impact cities that already welcome more immigrants than the rest of the US. In January 2017, the Trump administration instructed the US attorney general to withhold funding for sanctuary cities, but the decision was quickly challenged in court. In November 2018, a federal judge ruled the crackdown was unconstitutional.
The measure was reportedly originally proposed in November in response to a migrant caravan that travelled from Central America to the US-Mexico border but is widely viewed as impractical.
