President Trump to Hold Off on Deportation Raids for Two Weeks

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he will delay plans for a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants for two weeks so that he can negotiate with members of congress — a move that was quickly applauded by Democrats.

“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,” the president tweeted. “If not, Deportations start!”

The Trump administration had planned to deport more than 2,000 undocumented immigrants in as many as 10 cities in an unprecedented show of force aimed at deterring illegal migration of families. The removals would impact individuals who had previously received deportation orders, but continued living in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly took to Twitter to welcome the decision.

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The president’s tweet represented a change of course even from earlier in the day on Saturday.

Prior to sending the tweet, as the president departed for Camp David, he addressed a group of reporters and said that the deportations would start “during the course of this next week, maybe a little bit earlier than that” and that “everybody that came into the country illegally will be brought out of the country very legally.”

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When news broke that the president was calling on deportation raids, cities like Los Angeles, Baltimore and Chicago immediately fired back, saying they wouldn’t cooperate with the raids and warned residents to make sure they had functional locks on their doors. {snip}

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