The announcement, made on Twitter as Trump was meeting with aides at Camp David, was the president’s latest attempt to pressure his adversaries into making immigration changes. In May, he threatened to levy tariffs on Mexico unless it did more to stop the flow of migrants into the United States.
Immigration agents had been planning to sweep into immigrant communities in 10 major cities — including Miami, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Chicago — beginning Sunday. Officials said Friday that they had targeted about 2,000 families in a show of force intended to demonstrate their strict enforcement of immigration laws. Children of immigrants — some of whom were born in the United States — had faced the prospect of being forcibly separated from their parents.
Mark Morgan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had announced this month that his agency would begin the raids at some point in the future. But Monday, Trump revealed on Twitter that they would start the following week, claiming officials would deport millions of people and sending panic through cities across the country.
The president’s abrupt reversal Saturday came as lawmakers were considering a measure to send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border, money the Trump administration has said is desperately needed to handle a huge influx of migrants.
Some Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had threatened to withhold their support for the funding package when it comes to a vote in the House this week, in protest of Trump’s immigration policies. The specter of high-profile immigration raids had risked imperiling its chances of passage.
The Senate has reached a bipartisan deal on a similar measure, although Democrats have conditioned their support on assurances that none of the money would go toward Trump’s threatened raids.
Trump made clear he planned to use the threat of family deportations to extract concessions from Democratic lawmakers. He said he had delayed the raids “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.”
“If not, Deportations start!” he tweeted.