Trump denies plans for military to deport immigrants

  • 18/02/2017
Donald Trump (Reuters)
Donald Trump (Reuters)

The Trump administration has flatly denied reports the President has plans to mobilise the National Guard to round up unauthorised immigrants.

The Associated Press has obtained a memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) outlining the plan, which would see the militarisation of immigration services in 11 states - as far north as Oregon and east as Louisiana.

In the election campaign, Donald Trump promised to deport as many as 11 million immigrants.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer says the report is "100 percent not true".

The memo, described by a DHS official as an "early draft that was not seriously considered and never brought to the secretary for approval", bore the name of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.

Nine of the states declined to comment on the proposal. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said he'd not heard anything about it, but would have "concerns about the utilisation of National Guard resources for immigration enforcement".

National Guard troops have been used on the border with Mexico before, but never as widely as the memo called for.

The denial from the White House comes a day after Mr Trump attacked the media in a 75-minute press conference, before making a series of untrue claims about the size of his Electoral College victory.

Newshub.