President Donald Trump wanted U.S. Armed Forces to shoot migrants crossing into the United States in the legs to slow them down. The president in March also ordered aides to shut down the entire U.S.-Mexico border. And in a stunning display or medieval imagination, President Trump ordered aides to develop a cost analysis for digging a moat on the U.S. Southern border and filling it with water and snakes or alligators, all in an effort to stop migrants from entering the country.
Presumably, none of the extreme orders were followed, and the president must have countermanded his directive to shut down the entire border as that was never executed.
In a stunning report The New York Times took a look at some of the most tense moments the President created inside the White House for those conducting his immigration policies.
“Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate,” the Times explains.
“He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh,” the paper of record adds. “After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him..”
The Times spoke with over a dozen Trump administration officials, including Trump’s former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan.
Read the entire Times report here.
Image by U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Flickr