Trump Puts Immigration Raids on the Shelf

President Trump has sidelined a plan to launch raids against undocumented families nationwide—but why he did so isn't quite clear, the New York Times reports. Slated for Sunday, the ICE raids were designed to deport roughly 2,000 migrant families who had court-ordered removals. Then the president hit Twitter: "At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border," he wrote Saturday. "If not, Deportations start!" Nancy Pelosi had called the plan "heartless" and pressed Trump to "stop this brutal action," which might explain it.

But sources tell CNN that Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan was uneasy about the raids—and Fox News contributor Tom Homan, who strongly backs Trump on immigration, all but accused McAleenan of leaking the raid plan to media outlets. "You got the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security resisting what ICE is trying to do," he said, adding later that he knows "where [the leak] came from" and warned that it put ICE officers "at greater risk of harm." One insider says McAleenan visited the White House on Friday and "not in a good way." The delay follows a Thursday report from attorneys who found over 60 children living in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions at immigration facilities in Texas, per NBC News. (More immigration stories.)