Pres. Trump asked in a private meeting with aides if the U.S. could shoot migrants crossing the border below the waist to slow them down, sources confirm to ABC News
Frustrated with a record number of people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border this spring, President Donald Trump at one point asked in a private meeting with close aides whether the U.S. could shoot migrants below the waist to slow them down.
Sources interviewed by ABC News say Trump’s aides discouraged the idea of shooting unarmed migrants and it was never acted upon. But Trump remained focused on the idea, bringing it up again in the private Oval Office meeting in March 2019, when the number of undocumented migrants arriving at the border topped 100,000 for that month alone.
"I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough," he wrote."The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!" he tweeted, initially misspelling"Moat" as"Moot." It was later corrected. Trump’s repeated question on allowable use of force underscores the extreme lengths the president has been willing to consider to address a signature issue for the president. Trump frequently describes people coming across the border as part of an"invasion" and people who are criminals.
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