Nancy Pelosi revealed on Monday that she told President Trump that his threats to deport undocumented immigrants were “scaring the children of America.”
Trump made a surprise announcement on Friday that he was delaying his plans to have ICE deport immigrants in 10 major cities. It was later revealed that Trump made the about-face after a conversation with Pelosi, as The Inquisitr reported. Now, details about that conversation are emerging, according to The Hill , that indicate that the House speaker made a plea aimed at Trump’s sense of compassion as a parent.
“When I spoke to the president, I said, look, I’m a mom, I have 5 kids, nine grandchildren. And children are scared. You’re scaring the children of America. Not just in those families, but their neighbors and their communities. You’re scaring the children,” Pelosi said.
The California Democrat said that Trump didn’t indicate what he planned to do after delaying the deportation policy but told her that he believed undocumented immigrants had broken the law. To address the problem, she says that she urged the president to consider immigration reform rather than mass deportations.
She told the president that a “violation of status” is not a good reason to deport people.
“If you have some people who are guilty that you want to make a case against, that has nothing to do with violation of status, because then we’re talking about over 10 million people who may be subjected to this treatment, and what we need there is comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship,” Pelosi said.
Originally, Trump said that he was planning to order ICE to raid areas in 10 major cities in order to deport “millions” of immigrants before taking to Twitter to announce that he was delaying the order to give Congress a chance to work out a resolution to the situation.
Critics said that Trump’s threats were not likely to be successful given that the current system isn’t equipped to handle such a massive undertaking.
Trump: ICE to begin removing “millions” of undocumented immigrants next week https://t.co/ih1yxd2Lat
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 18, 2019
CNN reported that Pelosi spoke on the phone with Trump on Friday for 12 minutes in order to encourage him to let Congress do its job.
The House and Senate are expected to vote this week on two separate and different measures that would fund Trump’s request for $4.5 billion to address immigration issues on the southern border. But it seems unlikely that Congress will be able to reach an agreement before the recess for the Fourth of July.
